


But for Love

by Stacig



Category: Smallville
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Physics, Post-Apocalypse, Science, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:33:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 32,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stacig/pseuds/Stacig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To clarify, no one dies permanently in this story.</p><p>After the world is devastated by a genetically engineered pandemic, Clark works to save Lex from himself and change both their destinies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Timeline A - 2025

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 2002 CLex Fuh-Q-Fest, this is still one of my favourite stories. It was written in the summer and fall of 2002, so is AU after the first few episodes of season 2. 
> 
> This was the original challenge: In the future, Clark realizes that if he had told Lex how much he loved him/wanted him, the future would not have turned out like Cassandra saw it. He finds a way to go back in time. (Scarlet)
> 
> Beta was done by Walter Watcher and Teaphile.

The first person to get sick was a young man from Metropolis. He came back from visiting the library feeling ill, told his roommates that he was going to bed early and asked one of them to check on him in a couple of hours. He fell asleep and never woke up. The young woman who had come in to make sure he was okay found him shivering and feverish. His skin felt like fire and he had a strange rash over the majority of his body. He was rushed to the hospital, but he died two days later. By that time, his roommates were sick, as well as the doctors who had tried to treat him, and another five people who had also been at the library.

There was no immediate connection between the illness and Lex, and Clark didn't even suspect it until two weeks into the epidemic when a LexCorp employee blew the whistle on some of the things that had been going on in secret for the last five years. Clark had suspected the experiments with the meteor rocks, but he had never been able to prove anything. Years before, Lex had lined the walls of LexCorp's most important buildings with the green mineral the AI called Kryptonite and Clark hadn't been able to get anywhere near them since.

The whistle blower described experiments on viruses that he had been involved in. The employees had been told that they were developing a vaccine for a rare disease, but none of them had ever been allowed to work on enough of the process to put the pieces together and realize how much more was going on. The epidemic had made people afraid, and in their fear they had broken confidentiality agreements, talked between themselves, and figured it out. LexCorp had engineered the illness and then planted it in a public place to be spread. Clark couldn't even begin to understand why Lex would have done it.

Clark tried to get to Lex right away, but he couldn't. The billionaire had locked himself up tight in one of his meteor-rock laced buildings and there was simply no way that Clark could touch him. So he waited and helped with the search for a cure and a way to treat the victims. But a cure wasn't forthcoming and the illness spread like nothing else ever had. Within two weeks there were cases of infection in all major cities in North America. Travel was restricted and all kinds of precautions put in place, but it only took a further two weeks for it to begin spreading to Europe and Asia.

As the doctors began to die after treating their patients, hope of finding a cure fast enough to save the majority of the population dwindled. The researchers from LexCorp weren't able to help, either. Even with all of their pooled knowledge, there was still something missing from the solution, something that Lex had held back just for himself. Clark began to fear that it really was the beginning of the end of the world.

The third week into the epidemic, Clark took his parents and Lois, who were all still thankfully uninfected, to the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica. When his spaceship had built the retreat during his first year at college, Clark had never suspected that he would be using it like this, as a place to hide his family away from the rest of the world while it was slowly destroyed by the machinations of Lex Luthor.

Clark desperately tried to find some way to help, but all he could do was try and keep the peace as the world died around him. He returned to the Fortress for brief periods as breaks from the turmoil on the streets, but he didn't do it often. Returning meant going through a lengthy decontamination process to remove the virus from his body so that it wouldn't be spread to his parents and Lois. The AI was efficient and its work couldn't be faulted, but the possibility always remained that there was a stray virus particle hiding on Clark somewhere. Even one would be enough to spread the disease and kill the only people he loved. Seeing them wasn't worth that risk.

In the end, nothing was infallible, and the decontamination process turned out to be the same. They had lived longer than anyone else, longer than he had hoped for at various times during their isolation. The rest of the species had been dead for almost two months. The four of them, and quite possibly Lex, were the last sentient beings alive on the planet. It had been hard and there were days when Clark wondered why he had ever tried to save his family in the first place. What had he saved them for? The world was gone, contaminated, uninhabitable. It wasn't as if they could ever go back. What was there for them at the Fortress? He tried not to think about it too much and went out whenever he dared to bring them back things to pass the time; books, old movies, and other objects to make it seem more like home.

It was on one of those trips outside the Fortress that Clark picked up the virus. He breathed it in and it sat unnoticed in his lungs as the AI decontaminated the rest of his body. Once inside the Fortress, he breathed it out and that was the beginning of the end for all of them. Lois got sick first, her chills and fever early the next day alerting Clark to the possibility that he had brought it back with him. She slipped into a coma and his parents fell sick almost immediately after that.

He brought all of them back to Smallville to be buried. The local cemetery had been a mess after the chaos and death of the last year, so he had taken them out to a small stand of trees at the back of his parents' property. A stream ran through the area creating a gentle burbling sound. If Clark closed his eyes, he could almost believe that he was a child again and that none of the events of the past year had happened. His parents were still waiting for him at home. His mother was cooking something in the kitchen and his father was tending the fields. Clark smiled at the memory. It was the perfect place for the three of them.


	2. Timeline A - July 12, 2026

Clark pulled the folded, cream-colored paper out of his pocket. The paper was crisp and elegant, as was the handwriting on it once he unfolded it. The note was the reason that he knew that he wasn't the only person left alive on Earth. He had found it five months before, left where he was sure to be the one to retrieve it, and written in Lex's distinctive script. The message on it was only two lines long but told Clark everything that he needed to know. 'When you are finished with your other responsibilities, come and find me. We'll fulfill our destiny together.'

Clark found himself in the barn at his parents' farm almost before he had finished thinking the thought that would send him there. Lex was standing exactly where Clark knew that he would be, in the window of the hayloft, looking out at the slowly setting sun on the horizon.

"So, it's over?" Lex asked quietly from where he was standing. Clark wasn't sure how Lex knew that he had arrived. He was sure he hadn't made any sound in the few seconds that he had actually been in the building. Yet, Lex knew and that was enough for Clark. Some things would just remain a mystery.

Clark didn't respond to the questions. He climbed the stairs to the hayloft and moved to stand on the other side of the window from where Lex was. Their positions mirrored the ones they'd had so long ago when they had stood at this same window and discussed their destiny in the dying light of day.

"Why?" Clark asked harshly. The words felt like they were scraping his throat raw.

"I waited long enough," Lex told him cryptically. "It needed to end."

"Why everyone else? Why not just yourself?"

"That was never my destiny, Clark," Lex said and finally turned away from the sunset to face Clark. "It was never your destiny, either."

"We were supposed to be great together," Clark protested.

It had been years since they'd even been friends. Clark remembered the last day vividly. It was late in the summer after Clark had graduated from high school. Lex had come over in the middle of the afternoon to tell him that he was leaving for Metropolis the next day and that he wouldn't be back. There hadn't been any more warning than that. By the end of the month, Lex had been in control of his father's company and Lionel had all but disappeared.

"We are great together, Clark. We're the last two people alive on the planet," Lex said and a slow smile spread across his face. "Not that you're really a person, are you Clark?"

Clark shrugged. There was no need to protest it now. It was just them. There was no one else to keep the secret from anymore. "How long have you known?"

"Almost from the first," Lex said blandly. "You really should have invested in a better disguise if you wanted to fool people."

"It worked for everyone else."

Lex didn't say anything, but Clark still heard his answer. What worked for everyone else had never worked for Lex Luthor and Clark should have realized that a long time ago.

"You never said anything."

"That wasn't our destiny, either."

Clark was silent for several minutes. He didn't understand Lex. He was angry and numb. They both knew that Lex wasn't going anywhere. This was going to be the end of the line for both of them. There was no need to hurry the moment now that they were both there.

"What will you do when you're alone, Clark?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll go see what's out there," Clark said slowly and looked up towards the sky. Lex's eyes followed his, tracking their gaze.

He nodded. "That would suit you. You were always meant for that, anyhow."

"Maybe," Clark agreed.

"It's time, isn't it?" Lex asked eventually. The sun was almost gone now; it was just a thin sliver of gold in the distance.

"Yes." Clark stepped forward and placed one of his hands on Lex's shoulder. The other wrapped around the back of his neck.

"I always knew it would be you."

"I know."

"I'm not sorry."

"I know that, too," Clark told his former friend, who was now the only enemy he had left.

Clark moved the hand from Lex's shoulder to his neck and started the movement that would end it all. "I always loved you," Lex whispered as Clark snapped his neck.

Clark could feel the tears at his eyes almost instantly. He laid Lex's still body down on the dirty floor of the barn. He looked out at the dark sky, the sun now completely gone, and howled in agony.


	3. Timeline A - July 13, 2026

Clark buried Lex on the other side of the stream from his parents and Lois. It was perhaps more than the other man had deserved, but Clark liked the symbolism that it presented. The two parts of his life, together, and yet separated. Never able to meet in the middle.

Clark had cried as he buried Lex, harder than he had cried when his parents and Lois had passed, perhaps harder than he ever had before. Lex's confession at the end had torn through Clark, ripping open old wounds that he had thought were long since healed over. He had loved Lex since the first moment he had set eyes on the other man. It had been love at first sight, if such a sentimental term could ever be applied to the serious relationship that he and Lex had shared over the years. They had been friends, best friends, then acquaintances, and finally bitter enemies. It had been rocky and tumultuous, but always the most important relationship in Clark's life. They had been each other's destinies. If only they had figured out how much they loved each other before that love turned cold and bitter.

"I'm so sorry," Clark whispered and placed his hand on the cold dirt that now covered Lex's body. If only there was a way for him to go back and change the way things had worked out.


	4. Timeline B - September 18, 2004

Clark sighed and sat down hard on the couch in the loft of the barn. It was Saturday night and he was stuck at his house studying instead of going out with his friends partying or whatever else it was that eighteen year olds were supposed to be doing on Saturday nights.

He was grounded. It had been three weeks in total, one more and the two that he had already served. It was all Lex's fault. Clark smiled at that thought and remembered the party that Lex had taken him to the weekend before school had started again. It hadn't been a high school party, it had been a real party with people that Lex knew from Metropolis, people that Lex had wanted to introduce Clark to. They had all treated him like an adult and Clark had loved the attention.

He had come home two hours past his curfew smelling like alcohol and cigarettes. His father had been waiting for him in the barn and they had fought. Yes, Clark had admitted, he had been drinking, but he had not been smoking. He still didn't completely understand his father's objection to the drinking. It wasn't like alcohol had the same effect on him as it did on regular people, but he guessed that it was the principle of the thing. He was underage. He shouldn't have been drinking. The fact that his father also knew that it was Lex who had dropped Clark off only moments before hadn't helped Clark's case either. So, Clark had ended up grounded and miserable.

Clark heard a noise in the barn and used his x-ray vision to see down through the floorboards to the ground level. There was someone down there, kind of lurking in the shadows. The person was tall and likely male.

"Lex?" Clark called. He tried to imagine who else it could be. His father wouldn't lurk and Pete would be shorter. "Lex, if that's you, you know I can't go anywhere tonight. My dad's still pissed about the party."

There was another noise that was movement and then the figure was coming up the stairs. There was something familiar about the way they moved and Clark tried to figure out who it could be. He slipped back into normal vision and saw... himself.

"Clark?" the other him asked and then laughed nervously. He must have noticed how strange it was to call his name in relation to someone else.

"Clark," the other said again. "I can barely believe it's you... me... It's been so long since I've seen someone."

"Umm," Clark muttered. He felt so confused. This other Clark was him, but not. He was definitely older. He was slightly taller, he had lost the softness of youth that Clark was so used to seeing on his own face, and he looked tired. So very tired.

"Wow," the older Clark exclaimed and then cleared his throat. He seemed to have remembered that he was there for a reason. "Okay, I don't know how much time I'll have once I start telling you this, so I'm just going to say it and then you can ask questions if I'm still here."

"You're from the future?" Clark asked.

"Yes," the other confirmed with a nod, "many years. Now listen. It's bad. The future, I mean. It's really bad. And most of that is Lex's fault."

Clark started to protest that it simply wasn't possible, but the other held up his hand and made a sad noise.

"I know you don't want to believe it, but it's true. It is Lex's fault and... and ours too in a way. But you can stop it. You need to tell Lex how you feel about him."

"What?" Clark demanded. He slid backwards across the couch, away from his older twin. "I can't tell him that."

"You have to," the other insisted. "It's the only way to avoid Cassandra's prediction. Everyone will die, Clark. Everyone."

"I...."

"He loves you too, you know?" the other Clark said.

"He does?"

"Yes. Look, I don't think I have much time," he said. The older Clark held up his hand and Clark saw that he could see right through it. All of the other man's body was becoming translucent. "I'm going. That means we've changed the future. There's hope. Just promise me that you'll tell him."

"I...," Clark stammered again. He looked down at his hands for a moment. When he looked back up the other was almost gone. "I'll do it."

"Thank you," he said and managed a smile before fading away.

Clark continued to stare at the spot where his future self had stood. Had it been real? Had he only imagined it? What if it was true and the fate of the world really did rest on his ability to confess his attraction to Lex? Could he afford to take the chance that he had been wrong?


	5. Timeline B - October 15, 2004

Clark felt a shiver of nervous anticipation run through him as he stepped into Luthor Castle. He had spent a month thinking about it, but he had finally decided that he couldn't take the chance that his future self was right and that not telling Lex about his feelings would lead to the death of... well... everyone. He still occasionally had nightmares about the vision that he had shared with Cassandra, and the possibility that he could have lived a future where it all came to pass scared him more than he could almost imagine. To lose everyone, all his friends and family and everyone else in the world, was the most horrific thing he could think of. The thought that his best friend, Lex, could be the cause of it was also highly disturbing.

George let Clark into the house as he always did and told him that Lex was in his office. Clark thanked the man and then headed towards the familiar room. He tried to think of how many times he had been here over the past three years. Two or three times a week for three years; it had to be at least a couple hundred. The familiar surroundings helped put Clark at ease and made him feel more comfortable about what he was going to be saying that evening.

His future self had assured him that Lex shared his feelings, but he couldn't quite shake the fear that Lex was going to look at him with disgust and order him out of the house, or take one look at him and laugh in his face. What if Clark never saw the other man again? What if their friendship was ruined forever? Would it be worth it? To save everyone he cared about? Yes, it would, no matter how much it pained him to admit it. Saving everyone he loved was worth the possibility of making Lex hate him.

Clark took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and laughed softly at his silliness. This was Lex, his best friend. There should be little to be scared of here. Maybe he was just making up all his fears. Surely, he knew Lex better than anyone else, and Lex had always been good to Clark. He would still be a good friend now, no matter how he felt about what Clark was going to say to him.

The door to Lex's office was slightly ajar, so Clark pushed it open farther and let himself in. Clark knew the signal by now. If the door was open he was more than welcome to walk in, but if it was closed, he needed to knock first. Lex had instituted their little signaling system after Clark had wandered in on one too many business meetings. Lex had laughed and said that it wasn't so much that he cared, the meetings were often boring and he would rather get out of them anyhow, but that it wasn't seemly for Clark to be wandering around the manor unchecked. And since the last thing that Clark wanted was to appear rude or unmannered in front of Lex or his guests, he had agreed to Lex's idea of leaving the door slightly open when Clark was welcome to walk in and interrupt him.

Lex was on the phone when Clark entered the office. The man looked up and saw Clark. He nodded and gestured towards one of the chairs sitting on the other side of the desk. Lex couldn't expect the call to last too much longer if he was indicating that Clark should stay, so Clark settled himself in the chair and waited for his friend to be free. The call seemed boring and appeared to be a discussion of the feedstock for the plant. Sometimes Clark wondered how Lex could put up with all the day-to-day minutia of running the plant when he was still so young. There was no way that Clark was going to want that much responsibility when he was twenty-four.

"Clark," Lex greeted him as soon as he managed to get off the phone.

Clark had been looking around the room, trying to see if anything had changed since the last time he had been there. He found that it hadn't. It didn't surprise Clark. Contrary to what he wanted people to think, Lex was actually quite orderly and predictable. He turned back to look at Lex when the other started to speak to him.

"Hey, Lex," Clark returned. "If you're busy I can go. I... I didn't mean to interrupt anything." He felt more nervous than he ever had around his friend and the last thing that he wanted to do was drag the other away from anything important just so that he could confess that his feelings ran deeper than they probably ought to.

"Don't be silly, Clark," Lex said with a smirk. He slid out of his chair and walked over to the small bar in the corner of the room. "I'm never that busy." He opened the cabinet and reached in for a bottle of water. "Want anything?"

Clark's eyes tracked Lex's movements and Clark couldn't help but think about the way that Lex moved, so feline and graceful. He was slightly startled when Lex's words brought him back to reality.

"Umm... no," Clark said quickly and a perhaps little too loudly. He knew that it simply wouldn't be safe for him to be holding anything breakable right then.

Lex just shrugged, smirked a little bit more, and then closed the cabinet. He walked back over to his desk and sat down. "So, Clark," he started. "What can I do for you today?"

"I... uh... I need to talk to you about something," Clark muttered. He watched as Lex unscrewed the cap of his bottle and took a long pull of the cool, clear liquid. Clark swallowed compulsively in response and struggled to make sense of the words Lex had started speaking.

"Nothing's wrong, is it?" Lex asked. Worry was plain in his voice and Clark immediately felt like an ass for making his friend concerned.

"No, no, it's nothing like that. I just need to tell you something."

"Okay," Lex said reasonably. He lowered his bottle of water to the table and fastened his eyes on Clark.

Clark could feel himself start to blush. He always felt slightly uncomfortable when Lex looked at him like that, like what he was going to say something vitally important to the future of everyone, which today might possibly be the truth. It made Clark feel like he was being put on the spot and analyzed. It also always reminded him of how young he was.

"I... I like you, Lex," Clark stuttered out.

"I like you too, Clark," Lex returned with a smirk that was almost a genuine smile. He seemed to be waiting for whatever else it was that Clark was going to say. How could he not understand that Clark had already said what it was that he had gone there to say? Why did it need to be so much more complicated than necessary?

"No, Lex. I... I mean, that's it. I like you. A lot. As more than friends." Clark felt like a dork. Was it possible for him to sound more like a child while he did this? This was no way to convince Lex that he was right.

Lex's face fell, his pseudo-smile disappearing. His eyes narrowed and he seemed to be scrutinizing Clark to see if the young man was serious or not. Evidently what he saw in Clark's face put him more at ease, because a moment later Lex's eyes softened and he started to look more like the person that Clark knew.

"Clark, I...," Lex started, but Clark jumped in and cut him off.

"Lex, I'm sorry. Look, you don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know," Clark said hurriedly. He stood up quickly and started heading towards the door. He almost knocked over his chair in his haste to leave the room.

The look in Lex's eyes had told Clark enough. Lex was surprised by Clark's words. He wasn't disgusted, but he didn't understand how Clark could feel that way about him. He had likely never thought of Clark as anything other than his best friend. Or his little brother. Oh, God. His future self had been wrong, so very wrong. Clark just wanted to go hide somewhere so that he could ride out his embarrassment alone.

"Clark, wait," Lex called after him. He was up, out of his chair and moving towards Clark as fast as he could. He caught up with Clark and placed his hand on the younger man's arm. "You don't need to be embarrassed. I was just surprised, is all. What made you tell me this now?"

"I... I just wanted you to know," Clark stuttered. "I thought that it would be for the best. I... I know that you don't feel the same way."

Lex laughed. It was louder and harsher than Clark could remember hearing Lex laugh before. "I can't believe that you think that," Lex said after a moment of Clark staring at him in slightly hurt confusion.

"Lex," Clark protested. He didn't understand Lex's reaction to this at all. It sure wasn't making him feel any better about the situation.

"Clark. I'm sorry," Lex said softly once he had managed to stop laughing. "I just can't believe that you've never once noticed the way that I look at you. I mean, half the town probably knows how I feel about you. I suspect it's most of the reason why your father has such a huge problem with our friendship."

"You like me too?" Clark asked slowly as he began to make out the meaning behind Lex's words.

"Of course I do," Lex agreed. His eyes swept up and down Clark's body and Clark could feel himself starting to blush again. He couldn't believe that Lex was looking at him like that, like he was something special.

Lex stepped forward and reached out to pull Clark's face down towards his. He moved their heads expertly and then kissed Clark. It was amazing; it was heaven. Clark had never been kissed like that in his whole life. None of the girls he'd kissed had ever made him feel like he was feeling right then, like the rest of the world had fallen away and all that was left was him and Lex. It was more than amazing, and it was over all too soon.

Lex pulled back and stared up at him as Clark tried to catch his breath.

"So... so what now?" Clark asked slowly as he began to regain the ability to form coherent sentences.

"Now this," Lex told him with a sly smile and reached out to start undoing the buttons of Clark's shirt. He leaned forward and once again captured Clark's lips while he undid the top three.

Lex's actions startled Clark. He knew exactly what the other man was initiating, but he didn't think that he was ready to have sex with Lex. Until just a few minutes before they had only been friends. Now they had started this new level in their relationship, and Lex wanted to jump straight into being intimate with each other. It seemed like too much all at once. Clark kissed Lex briefly, then stepped back and removed himself from the kiss. Lex's hands fell away from Clark's shirt.

"Lex," Clark protested with a little laugh that was designed to take the sting out of what he was saying. His shirt hung open in the front, but he made no immediate move to close it. It didn't concern him too much; Lex had seen his chest before. Clark just didn't want it to go too much beyond that right then.

"Clark," Lex returned with a smirk and stepped towards Clark again. He slipped his left hand inside Clark's shirt and ran it over his stomach. It felt good and Clark was almost shocked when he heard himself moan in response to the touch.

"Lex, can't we... can't we just date for a while?"

Lex smirked. "We've been dating for three years, Clark. I think that's long enough for anyone." Lex's hand continued to move over Clark's skin. His fingers found a nipple and teased it gently. Clark moaned again, soft and low, and then blushed hotly.

"Lex," Clark tried again.

"Isn't this what you wanted when you came here this afternoon?" Lex asked in a low voice. "I know you've dreamed about this, Clark."

Clark groaned as images from remembered dreams flashed through his mind. He had thought about this, and the truth was that he really did want to have sex with Lex. He didn't think that now was the right time, though. They had only just admitted their attraction to each other. They needed time to get used to that, to see how the other was going to fit into each of their lives. Clark needed to think of a way to deal with his parents when they eventually found out what had happened between him and Lex.

"I want you, Clark," Lex said softly as he stepped even closer.

His hands returned to the buttons of Clark's shirt and continued to undo the rest of them. Clark didn't offer any more resistance. Lex's words and his voice were ringing through Clark's head. Lex wanted him. He wanted Lex. Maybe it wasn't so wrong. Maybe it was the right time after all. Lex did know a whole lot more about those kinds of things than Clark himself, and his future self had assured him that Lex loved him.

Lex reached up to push the shirt off Clark's shoulders. Clark shrugged out of the garment and then leaned down to kiss Lex soundly. If Lex were sure that this was the right time, then Clark would go with it. If only because he knew that Lex loved him and, because of that, he also knew that Lex wouldn't do anything to hurt him, at least not intentionally.

Lex leaned in and started to run his tongue over Clark's skin. He traced a line over to Clark's left nipple and drew the little bud into his mouth. He sucked it softly and then bit down on it. Clark gasped and shuddered in response.

"Okay," Clark agreed.

"Mmm," Lex muttered around Clark's flesh. He didn't remove his mouth from Clark's nipple when he reached up and started to undo his own shirt.

Before Clark was fully aware of Lex moving, the other man was shirtless and pressed up against Clark's body. His mouth had left Clark's nipple and sought out his mouth for another kiss. Clark indulged his new lover and they shared a kiss that sent a spike of lust and need straight down to Clark's cock.

"I... I've never," Clark muttered as Lex's mouth eventually left him. He felt silly saying the words, but Lex needed to know that he was the first, that Clark had no real idea of what he was doing.

"I know," Lex said, and what looked like a genuine smile once again crossed his face. Clark knew that Lex liked the idea of him being a virgin; untouched by anyone except him. Lex was going to be his first and it was all so exciting and special.

Lex moved his hands down to Clark's hips and ran them just under the waist of his jeans. His hands met in the front and Lex slowly undid the button and pulled down Clark's zipper. He pushed the thick fabric back over Clark's hips and then let it fall slowly down his long legs.

Clark stood in front of Lex in only his boxers. He was obviously and painfully hard. Lex was going to see him naked for the first time. He was so nervous and excited that he felt his entire body vibrating under Lex's hands. He wondered if the other man could feel the sensation as well. Then Lex dropped to his knees and Clark almost came right there. Oh God, Lex was going to suck him off. He, Clark Kent, was going to be sucked off by Lex Luthor right here in his fucking office. It was so incredibly hot and Clark briefly wondered how he had ever thought that now was not the right time for them to start the sexual part of their relationship.

"God, Lex," Clark groaned and bucked towards the other man.

"Yeah, Clark," Lex said. His hand was on Clark's hip again, gently caressing and trying to hold Clark in place. He wasn't being very successful.

Lex's fingers wrapped in the waistband of Clark's boxers and he drew them slowly off Clark's hips and down his legs. Clark was almost afraid of the reaction that he would get from his new lover. Sure, he had seen other guys in the showers and stuff, and he thought that he looked normal, but it wasn't the easiest thing to tell from a distance. What if his parts weren't exactly like normal human parts? What would Lex say? How would he explain it without giving away his entire secret? He felt himself soften slightly at the worry that was traveling through his brain.

"Wow," Lex breathed softly and then wrapped his warm mouth around Clark.

Clark gasped and thrust into Lex's mouth. He had hardened again immediately.

Lex wrapped his hands tighter around Clark's hips and pulled back slightly. "Careful," he warned and Clark realized that he had thrust too forcefully into Lex's mouth. The last thing that he wanted to do was hurt his lover when the other man was making him feel so amazing.

"Sorry," Clark muttered.

Lex's soft hum and the circular motion of his fingers on Clark's hip told the younger man that everything was okay.

Lex sucked steadily on the head of Clark's cock and then drew his entire length deep into his mouth. He ran his tongue along the underside as he continued to suck and move up and down Clark's length. It was all so good, and somewhat overwhelming. Clark found that he couldn't focus on any one thing that Lex was doing and so resigned himself to just experiencing all of it together. His hands moved down to cup the back of Lex's head as the older man continued to suck him off.

Lex's mouth felt like liquid fire wrapped around Clark's cock and it was driving him right to the edge. He felt his release gathering deep in his balls. He knew he was close and he also knew that he needed to warn Lex.

"Lex," Clark gasped. "I'm going to come."

Lex sucked him hard one last time and then pulled back. Clark's cock slipped from his mouth. He reached up, wrapped his fingers around Clark's length, and pumped him steadily for a couple of strokes. That was all it took to bring him completely over the edge. He came into Lex's hand with a sharp cry. He thought that he might fall over, just from the pure pleasure of the experience, but Lex's remaining hand on his hip steadied him enough that he only needed to take a step back.

"That was... that was amazing," Clark stuttered as soon as he was able to speak again.

Lex smiled cheekily up at him. "And the best is still yet to come, Clark."

"Oh?"

"Oh definitely," Lex said seriously. He helped Clark step out of his pants and boxers, which were still tangled around his feet. He stood up and then maneuvered the two of them until they were standing next to the couch. When Clark's legs brushed the front of the piece of furniture, Lex pushed him down so that he was sprawled over it.

Lex walked over to his desk, opened the top drawer, and took a couple of things out of it. He came back over to the couch and placed the items down on the floor next to it. Clark looked and saw that they were a condom and a tube of something that he assumed was lube. He looked back up at Lex and watched the older man as he undressed himself the rest of the way.

When all of his clothes were off, Lex stepped towards where Clark was still sprawled. He helped Clark find a comfortable position lying on the long surface and then climbed onto the couch between Clark's legs. Lex reached down and picked up the tube of lube.

"You're going to like this so much," Lex breathed as he squeezed the clear gel out onto his fingers.

Clark shivered slightly. He was worried about this, not because he thought that Lex could hurt him, but because it was so serious. Once they had done this, there was no going back. He would literally have been fucked by Lex. While that thought excited him, it also caused some small amount of concern for Clark. Nothing in his life would ever be the same. He wouldn't be a child any longer. He felt a spike of panic all of the sudden and fought to keep it down. He had already told Lex yes, and he himself had already come; it would hardly be fair to deny Lex now.

Clark moved his legs back to give Lex better access. Lex reached down and started to smooth the cool gel over Clark's hole. Clark shuddered and gasped. It felt nothing like he had ever imagined that it would. He had never really touched himself down there, even though he knew that was something that guys did with each other. He had felt foolish and a little guilty about even thinking of doing it and because of that had always stuck to simply stroking his cock when he was masturbating. Now he wondered why he had never heard how incredible it could feel to be touched there.

Lex had a finger inside him and was moving it around in circles. He touched something deep inside Clark that made the younger man gasp again and feel like the top of his head was about to come off.

"Like that, don't you?" Lex teased gently.

He pulled his finger out and Clark moaned softly at the loss. Lex laughed and quickly returned with a second finger. Clark couldn't believe how much better it felt with two fingers inside him and he could only imagine what it would feel like once Lex was inside him. He just couldn't wait.

"Need you," Clark gasped.

"You're not ready, Clark," Lex told him softly and continued to move the two fingers inside Clark's tight passage.

"Won't hurt me," Clark groaned. Lex hit that spot inside him again and Clark temporarily lost the ability to think rationally.

"Clark," Lex protested.

"Lex, please," Clark begged.

"Okay," Lex said eventually. He sounded reluctant, but he was agreeing. "But only because you beg so pretty."

Lex leaned over and reached down for the condom. Clark moved his hand and grabbed Lex's wrist before the older man could complete the movement.

"Do we have to?" he asked softly.

"Yes, Clark, we do," Lex insisted.

"I... I just want to feel you. Nothing else. Just you," Clark insisted. He knew that Lex couldn't give him anything that could hurt him, even though Lex didn't know that himself.

"No," Lex said definitively.

"Lex."

"No, Clark. No. You never let anyone do this to you without a condom. Do you understand me?"

Clark saw the seriousness in Lex's eyes. He wanted to insist that Lex would be the only one to ever do it, so it wasn't an issue, but he knew better than to try and argue with Lex when he looked that stubborn.

"Okay," Clark sighed and nodded.

"I'm serious."

"I know," Clark said.

"Good."

Clark let go of Lex's hand. Lex opened the little package quickly and rolled the condom down his cock. Clark watched as Lex squeezed a little more of the gel into his hand and then pumped his cock a couple of time to slick it up. When he was ready he moved forward and positioned himself in front of Clark's opening.

"Are you ready?" he asked softly.

"Yes," Clark breathed.

Clark felt Lex's cock slide into him slowly. The pace Lex was setting was infuriating. It was way too slow. Clark wrapped one of his legs around Lex's hips and pulled the other man towards him. Lex sunk into him in one hard, fast stroke.

"Shit," Lex exclaimed.

Clark just smiled in satisfaction. Lex was inside him. It was kind of scary, but it was also so incredibly right.

Lex must have seen the look on Clark's face and understood that the younger man was okay. He quickly started to thrust in and out of Clark's passage, angling his thrusts just right so that he was rubbing against that little spot every time. It was so good and Clark knew that he was going to come again. It only took a couple of minutes and he was crying out with Lex as he came hard against his own stomach and then a moment later Lex came deep inside him.

"God, Clark," Lex groaned as he collapsed on Clark's chest. "Are you okay?"

"Mmm," Clark muttered, "never better."

"Good."

Clark smiled. He wrapped his arms around Lex and just held the other man as the two of them relaxing in the afterglow of what they had just done.


	6. Timeline B - August 25, 2005

"I don't know why you're so against this, Lex," Clark said and sighed loudly. He wasn't happy. He really didn't know why Lex wasn't even willing to consider what he wanted.

They'd been together for almost a year. Clark had been accepted into Metropolis University for the fall semester and Lex was returning to the city at the same time to finally take up the position that his father had been offering him for several years. It was only natural that they would think about whether or not they wanted to live together, at least to Clark it was. Lex didn't even want to have the conversation. Clark had been trying to bring it up for several weeks now and Lex just kept avoiding the topic.

When Lex had told Clark that there simply wasn't a reason for him to stay in Smallville once Clark left, he thought that Lex was finally becoming comfortable with their relationship. Maybe he was ready to let people know that they were together. Maybe he was ready for some type of commitment. But Lex's actions now were making Clark seriously reconsider his earlier conclusion. Lex didn't seem ready to deal with their relationship at all.

"I've explained to you, Clark. I'm not ready to live with you or anyone else," Lex said. He sounded frustrated and a little angry, like he wasn't sure why Clark simply couldn't get the point and drop the argument. He toyed with the glass in his hand and refused to meet Clark's eyes.

"We've been together for almost a year," Clark protested.

"We're just fucking, Clark," Lex snapped harshly. "It's not like we're going to get married or something."

"Lex," Clark gasped. He felt like he couldn't breathe. Lex didn't really think of their relationship like that, did he? Was that the reason that he'd never let Clark tell anyone about it?

"What?" Lex asked. He stood up from the chair he was sitting in, placed his glass down on the table with a loud thump, and walked around to stand at the window. "You're the one who's always made this into more than what it was, Clark. I told you a long time ago that this was what I could give you. You seemed fine with it then."

"I...," Clark stuttered. He did remember Lex telling him that. It was a vivid memory. At the time Clark had thought that Lex would grow out of his conviction, that once they had been together for some time he would see that they really did have a future together. His future self had promised him that Lex loved him back, so how couldn't he? How couldn't he love Clark when Clark felt like his heart would break if Lex ever left him?

"I love you," Clark eventually managed to force out. He loved Lex so much that it hurt sometimes. He couldn't even imagine being without Lex now. He'd always believed that the other man secretly loved him back, as well, but maybe... maybe he didn't.

Lex cringed and reached up to run his hand over his head. "Don't start," he warned Clark loudly.

"Surely what we have means more to you than just a good fuck," Clark insisted.

Lex came back across the room to stand next to the table again. He reached down and picked up his glass. "I like you, Clark. I really like what we do together. Don't ruin this by insisting that you need more than I can give you."

Clark stared at Lex and felt his mouth dropping open. "You don't love me," he said softly. He had just realized it. All these months, he had been holding out and hoping that Lex really did feel the same way about him that he felt about Lex, but it had all been in vain. Lex truly didn't love him. In fact, Clark wondered if Lex was capable of loving anyone at all.

"I never said that I did," Lex pointed out to him.

"I just... I always thought...," Clark trailed off. He couldn't finish what he was saying.

"What?" Lex demanded. "That I was wrong? That I really loved you but didn't know it? Clark," Lex laughed sharply, "this isn't some romance novel. We don't get to ride off into the sunset together. That's not how real life works."

"But, what we have...," Clark protested softly.

"I'm fucking my best friend, Clark. What do you think we have?" Lex's voice was blunt and oh so cold. Clark felt a small shiver run up his back. Had Lex felt like this all along? Why hadn't he caught onto it before now?

"I... I guess I don't know," Clark admitted eventually.

Lex just kept staring at him and Clark couldn't stop the feeling that he was going to start crying any second. He couldn't believe that Lex really felt that way about their relationship. He couldn't believe that he didn't really love him like Clark's future self had promised. Had everything they'd had over the last ten months been based on a dream that would never come true? Clark had thought that he had found the one person that he would be with for the rest of his life. Obviously Lex had other ideas about what they were to each other.

"I need to go," Clark muttered suddenly and pushed himself up off the couch he was sitting on. He couldn't stay there in Lex's home any longer. He needed to get out. He needed to be alone for a while so that he could think about what was going on. Could he still be with Lex now that he knew that the other man didn't see a future for them? Could he stay with Lex and be the dirty little secret that he kept hidden from the rest of the world? Could he really leave the man that he loved just because he wasn't loved back?

Lex nodded and watched Clark as he stumbled out of the room. Clark wanted Lex to follow him out, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't going to happen, and it didn't. He made it down the stairs and out Lex's front door before he started running. Nothing was working out the way that he had thought it would when he had come to Lex's office last year, and he had no idea what he had done wrong.


	7. Timeline B - November 26, 2025

Clark came awake slowly. He hurt all over, and that just wasn't right at all. He tried hard to remember what had happened to him. He refused to open his eyes until he had a grip on the situation. He could hear someone else in the room with him. He wasn't going to give them even more of the upper hand by admitting to his conscious status before he was ready. The floor was hard, but carpeted underneath him. He hurt and he could almost feel his blood pulsing through his veins. He knew that meant there was Kryptonite nearby and that he was going to be very nearly incapacitated as soon as he tried to move. He just couldn't seem to remember how he had gotten himself into this situation.

"You might as well open your eyes, Clark," someone called from across the room. "I know that you're awake over there." The voice was familiar and the fact that it had called him 'Clark' and not 'Superman' scared him more than he would have been willing to admit. Whoever this was knew him, knew his weakness, and knew his identity. There was only one person who could know that, Clark realized as he rolled towards the voice.

"Lex," Clark drawled and opened his eyes to see his former best friend and lover.

The older man was sitting across the room in a metal chair. It didn't look comfortable, but Lex was perched in it as elegantly as he had ever done anything in his life. They were in a large, concrete room with computer equipment all around them. On the wall behind Lex was a large, electronic map of the world. The hum of all the machines was almost overwhelming.

"You know," Clark said. He didn't know why that was the first thing that came to his mind to say, but it was. He was simply so surprised that anyone had found out his identity. His disguise had served him so well for all these years that he had just assumed it was foolproof. Obviously, it hadn't been enough for Lex.

"Of course I know," Lex scoffed.

"The disguise?"

"Please, Clark. I've fucked you. You think I don't know how you would look in tights? Besides, I knew you before you started wearing those hideous glasses."

Clark sighed. There were more important things for them to be talking about here than Clark's choice of clothing and accessories. To start with there was what exactly Lex thought he was doing with Clark in this... basement?

"Why am I here?" Clark asked.

"You're here to witness our destiny being fulfilled and then to complete it. What, was there somewhere more important that you need to be today?" Lex's voice dripped with sarcasm. He seemed to be incredibly amused with himself and he laughed harshly after he finished talking. It suddenly crossed Clark's mind to wonder whether Lex was truly sane any longer. He hoped so. After all, this was the man the American people had elected as their president only a year ago.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Clark demanded. He slowly drew himself up to a standing position and took a step towards Lex. The movement hurt, but he willed himself to move through the pain. If Lex really was insane, Clark might need to be able to stop him from doing whatever it was that he was planning on doing. Even if Lex wasn't insane, he had still captured Clark and, as a captive, Clark was obligated to try and escape as best as he could.

Clark completed his first step with a grunt. He breathed heavily and tried to hide how much he was straining from Lex. The other man didn't need to know the extent to which Clark was hurting. Half way through his second step, Clark ran straight into an invisible barrier. He convulsed sharply and fell backwards with a cry of pain. Lex snorted and smirked at him from across the room.

"It's a Kryptonite-enhanced force field, Clark. There's no way you're coming through it, so you might as well stop trying right now. I told you. You're just here to witness our destiny right now. Later will be your time to act."

"You're crazy, Lex," Clark spat as he suddenly became certain of his ex-lover's state of mind. There was no way that a sane man would have Clark trapped down here and be speaking to him in strange riddles.

Lex laughed sharply, his voice echoing off the walls of where ever it was they were. It turned the sound hollow and eerie. Clark would have shivered if he'd even had that much control over his body. The Kryptonite exposure was continuing to affect him and he was pretty sure that he was lucky he was even conscious at the moment.

"Does that make you understand it more, Clark, to think that I must be insane to do these things? Maybe you're the one who's not quite right. Why can't you see the darkness that lies within all of us? Why couldn't you ever see that this is who I really am?" Lex stepped closer and closer to Clark as he continued to talk. As he neared the force field, he reached out with a gloved hand and laid it against the energy barrier, caressing it in some warped parody of what Clark had thought that he once shared with Lex.

"Because this isn't you, Lex," Clark said softly. His voice was sad and full of pity. How had the man he'd once loved, the man who had been his best friend, turned into this insane monster? And suddenly he knew: it was because he had failed.

"It was always me," Lex snapped. He removed his hand from the force field and turned around sharply. Lex stalked over to the large table in the room and picked up a tablet. It would allow him to operate one of the many computers in this room remotely.

Clark had failed.

"Do you know what this does?" Lex asked slowly. His voice was lower now than it had been before, more dangerous.

"No," Clark answered, although he had a fairly good idea that whatever it did he wouldn't like it. If Lex had captured him, caged him, and brought him down here to witness this, there was no way that Clark would like it at all. Just like he knew that he wouldn't like this 'destiny' that Lex kept talking about.

"It's a launch device," Lex told him. His voice was silky smooth and he smiled brokenly as he caressed the side of the tablet. "For our fusion weapons. No one even knows that I have it. All these fail safes that they've put into the system and they don't even know that just by pressing here," Lex moved his thumb over the face of the tablet, "I can control the entire thing."

"Lex," Clark growled as he saw Lex's finger glance over the screen. Shit. What the fuck did Lex think he was doing? He really was insane and much more dangerous than Clark had ever thought possible. If Lex was really in complete control of all their weapons... That was a scary thought indeed.

"Oh, don't worry, Clark. It's a biometric device. The gloves protect it." As Lex talked he placed the tablet down on the table and started to strip off his gloves.

Clark watched in horrified fascination as one black glove and then the other came off Lex's hands and fell to the floor. Lex couldn't really be serious about what he was planning to do, could he? Why? Why would Lex do this?

Because he's insane, Clark's mind whispered to him. Because Clark had failed. This is what his future self had come back to help Clark change. He had needed to stop Lex's eventual fall into this mad drive to destroy everything that existed. Clark wanted to cry. Maybe if he had fought harder for Lex all those years ago. If he hadn't just walked out of the other man's life because Lex had told him that he could never love him, that he was only fucking his best friend and that Clark needed to get with the program or leave the relationship. Maybe if he had stayed he would have been able to change Lex, to prevent what was going on now.

Clark struggled to stand once more and threw his body against the side of the energy barrier. Once again he hit hard, bounced off the invisible wall, and fell convulsing on the floor. Fuck, there was nothing to do. Of all the times to be powerless, this was the worst possible one.

"Clark," Lex said wryly and smirked at him. "You were always overly persistent." Lex stopped and cocked his head like he was thinking about that last statement. "Well, almost always. I remember you gave up on me fairly easily. I wonder what I did to make you lose all hope."

"Lex," Clark cried. He watched as the older man again picked up the interface tablet from the table. "Don't do this."

"Ah, Clark," Lex cooed and Clark got the disquieting feeling that Lex was trying to soothe him. "It will all be over soon, I promise. Once I press this button, the computer will wait thirty minutes and drop your force field. Then we will really get to finish this. Once and for all."

"You don't have to do this," Clark insisted. "It doesn't need to be like this."

"Of course it does," Lex chided him. "This is the road we've been on since that day when I first hit you with my car. We both should have been dead that day. I was saved from death to fulfill my destiny, our destiny. I told you that we would be great, Clark, and who's greater than the man who destroys everything?

"Don't you see? Don't you see that I finally have the entire world? It's all mine. Right here," Lex continued and emphasized his point by shaking the tablet in Clark's direction. "And I'm going to do the one thing with it that no one else in history has been able to do. I'm going to destroy it all."

"Lex, no," Clark cried out.

"Oh yes. Are you ready to fulfill our destiny, Clark? Are you ready to be great with me?"

"No. You need to stop this," Clark pleaded.

"I don't think so." Lex's thumb moved so that it was hovering over the button. He just needed to move it down, touch the thin plastic plate, and everything would start to end.

"For me, Lex. Please?"

Lex looked at Clark with an amused smile on his face. "For you," Lex repeated. "Don't you understand yet, Clark? I'm doing this all for you. It's all been for you. Everything I've ever done since that day."

Clark's heart sank. He wasn't getting through to Lex. He didn't know what else to do. He was powerless. His words seemed all but meaningless to the man on the other side of the force field. There was nothing more that he could do. He had failed in the most important task he had ever been entrusted with. He had failed in protecting Lex from himself.

Lex's face took on a beatific look. He smiled in bliss. Clark had never seen the other man look quite like that. He seemed utterly at peace with himself and the rest of the world. How ironic that it would come from what he was about to do. "Yes, I think it's time," he said quietly and moved his finger over the face of the tablet. "Time."

"No," Clark cried out one last time, although he knew that it wasn't going to do any good. Lex had already done what he had set out to do and Clark was powerless to stop it. He felt the hot rush of tears pricking at his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He wasn't going to give Lex that much. Not now, and not ever again.

On the electronic map behind Lex, little red dots started to appear above North America. They moved ever higher, arching off to the east and the west and crossing the oceans with what seemed like frightening speed. On the other side of the world, above China, Russia, and parts of the Middle East, yellow dots started to appear in answer. Only a few at first, and then more and more as the rest of the world started to realize what Lex had done. Lex's cell phone started to ring insistently. Lex pulled it out of his pocket and turned it off with a definitive movement. There was going to be no outside intervention on their little drama. They were all on their own. Just like they had always been.

When the first red dot reached its target and disappeared off the screen, Clark closed his eyes and screamed silently in agony. He could just imagine all those people out there dying. Dying because of him, because he couldn't complete the task that had been set out for him. People were being hurt, being killed, and again it was his fault.

"Isn't it pretty?" Lex asked in a wistful voice. "So pretty. All those little dots moving around. The dance of death."

"Fuck you, Lex," Clark finally spat. He had no patience, no sympathy left for this man.

"Would you like that?" Lex asked him seriously as he turned back to look at Clark. "It was something that I never let you do. Is that why you left me?"

Clark didn't know what to say. How was he supposed to respond to that? "You're an idiot, Lex. I left because you said you couldn't love me. You know that."

"Oh," Lex replied. He turned back to the map and continued to watch his little dots.

Oh? That's all Clark got? The fucking world was being destroyed and all Clark got was an 'oh'? This was the single most frustrating situation of his life. Lex was insane. That was the only thing that could possibly explain his behavior. No sane person would stand there watching the world being destroyed while he talked to Clark about why their relationship had ended twenty years ago. Only Lex would think that he needed to do something like this to make Clark really listen to him.

Suddenly the force field fell and the time for thinking about their situation was over. Clark moved slowly at first, straightening out his heavy limbs, gathering his strength and the courage to pounce on Lex and do what he knew he needed to do. Maybe he should have spent the last half an hour preparing for that instead of wallowing in guilt and thinking about their relationship, but the simple truth was that he hadn't. He hadn't thought about it, and now the shift from Lex's captive to predator was violent and jarring.

"Come on, Clark," Lex gibed softly as he turned to face the younger man, the man who had once thought that he would spend the rest of his life with Lex Luthor. "I know the force field is down. Let's finish this off. We've got a destiny to fulfill, and I know that you will have things to do later today."

"You're a bastard, Lex," Clark growled. He stood up straight and started moving towards Lex. It was better, he had decided, to let Lex know exactly what was coming, to not take him by surprise. Lex didn't deserve the reprieve that surprise would have supplied him with. He deserved to have terror wash over him before the end. "You're a sick, insane, evil bastard. I can't believe that I ever loved you."

"You really did, didn't you?" Lex asked softly as Clark finally reached him.

Clark reached Lex. He stopped so that they were standing face-to-face, Lex's eyes only inches below his. He brought his hands up to surround Lex's head. "Yes," Clark breathed.

"You were the only one," Lex said simply. He looked down for a second and then back up into Clark's eyes. "I'm scared."

"You should be," Clark growled. His hands tightened around Lex's head and Clark snapped his neck with one quick, easy movement. He watched as Lex's eyes widened for just a second before the intelligence and life suddenly drained out of them.

It was over, and yet it wasn't. He still needed to go find out what was left of the world and try to stop any more damage from occurring. Once that was done, he needed to go visit the AI and figure out how his other self had traveled back through time. He needed to go back again and this time he needed to make sure that it worked. There had to be a way to avoid Cassandra's prophecy. All this pain and suffering was unnecessary. If only he could manage to get himself and Lex together.


	8. Timeline C - August 15, 2002

Lex knew it was Clark in his hallway. The boy always walked with a distinctive gait and he'd tried to sneak up on Lex enough times now that Lex knew his stride off by heart. Lex always pretended to be surprised when Clark ducked in his office, though. It was only fair after all the effort Clark put in just to come and visit Lex everyday. It had been a long, busy summer for Clark and most of the other residents of Smallville. Cleaning up after the tornado hadn't been quick or easy, but it was almost completed now. The repairs at the school were well underway and, with the help of a large dose of anonymous Luthor money, would be finished for the start of school in September.

Today Clark seemed to be hesitating in the hall. He sounded like he was pacing right outside the door, and that wasn't normal at all. Lex wondered if Clark had a problem. If he did, Lex only hoped he would be able to fix it. Clark meant so much to him and Lex only wanted the boy to be happy.

Sometimes Lex could admit it to himself; that he was in love with Clark. Or at least as in love with Clark as any Luthor had ever been able to be in love with anyone. His family wasn't known for their ability to handle emotional commitments, and Lex wasn't fooling himself. His father had raised him for most of his life and, as much as he tried to deny it, he was his father's son. He couldn't change that. What he could change was how he used that legacy. As long as he had Clark in his life, Lex was fairly certain that he would turn out okay.

Lex had almost given up waiting for Clark to enter the room and was about to call him in when the young man finally stopped hesitating and stepped into Lex's office. Lex heard the door open and Clark enter. Lex smirked softly to himself, but didn't look up.

"Hi Clark," he greeted his visitor.

"L... Lex," Clark asked. His voice was hesitant and he sounded surprised to see Lex, which was really rather strange considering that they were in Lex's office. It was enough to bring Lex's eyes up to really see Clark.

Clark was standing across the room, just barely inside the door, and... he wasn't himself. It wasn't Clark. The man looked exactly like Clark, except that he was older. He was an adult. Lex scrambled to make sense out of what he was seeing.

Clark had been adopted. He didn't know who his parents were. He didn't know his family. Some stray relative coming back into Clark's life right then would be very disruptive. It wasn't something that Lex particularly wanted happening if he could prevent it.

"Who are you?" Lex asked in a low, dangerous voice. "And why are you here?" The second question was possibly the more important one. If this man was related to Clark, why was he coming to see Lex? Did he want something? Did he have some kind of information regarding Clark's adoption that he wanted to be paid to keep to himself? Why else would the man go there, to Lex, rather than going straight to see the Kents and introducing himself?

"Lex," the man gasped as though he was surprised by the question and unsure of how to answer. "It's me. Clark," he insisted.

Lex eyed the man warily. He pushed away from his desk and stood up. If the man turned out to be insane, Lex didn't want to end up stuck behind his desk. He would be better able to alert security and defend himself in a standing position.

"You might look like Clark, but you're definitely not him. Not unless Clark's aged a good ten years since I saw him yesterday," Lex reasoned. He wondered if anything he said would change the fact that this man really looked like he believed that he was Clark.

"Oh that," the other man said and then smiled. He seemed relieved to hear that this was the reason Lex didn't believe he was Clark. "Lex," he continued and stepped further into the room.

"I know that you don't believe me, but I really am Clark. The reason I look older is that... well, I'm from the future." The last was pushed out in a rush and it took Lex several seconds to sort it out and then comprehend it.

When he finally did, Lex laughed hard and sharp. This man's delusion was humorous, but also, very possibly quite dangerous. What if he tried to convince Lex that he was telling the truth? What could the man do? When Lex didn't believe him, and he wouldn't because, well time travel was just impossible, what would he do then? Would he become violent? For the first time since the man had entered his office, Lex started feeling concerned for himself.

"Lex, I know you don't believe me, but it's true. I've come back from the future, a really bad future in a world that you destroyed," pseudo-Clark explained.

"And you're here to stop that from happening?" Lex mocked him. "To change your future? How? By talking to me now? Or are you maybe here to kill me? Is that the plan?"

"No," the man snapped. He sounded horrified that Lex had suggested such a thing. "I couldn't do that again," the man muttered to himself, but Lex was able to hear enough of it to know what he had said.

Lex stepped back from his desk and further away from pseudo-Clark. This man had killed someone in the past. Sure, he was saying that he couldn't do it again, but the fact remained that he was also admitting to having done it. Lex turned slightly to obscure the left side of his body and slowly removed his cell phone from his pocket. If this guy wasn't going to leave on his own, then Lex would need help.

"You need to listen to me, Lex. I don't know how much time I have and this is important," the man insisted. He stepped towards Lex and Lex forced himself to stand his ground. He didn't want to draw any more attention to his movements than was necessary.

"Okay," Lex agreed with a nod. He tried to sound as accommodating as possible. He reached down on his phone and pressed the speed dial button that would call his security team.

"You're supposed to go on a business trip in a few weeks," the man prompted.

Lex nodded in response. "It's a conference," he confirmed.

"You can't go," pseudo-Clark insisted. "There's something that happens there, someone that will change your life and not in a good way."

"Oh really?" Lex asked. He wondered where his security guys were. They really should have arrived already. What if pseudo-Clark had been armed? Lex could have been dead by now and what use would his expensive security have been then?

"Yes. I'm... Clark's going to ask you to go camping. Just go. Forget about your conference."

Lex could hear his security guys in the hall now. The sound of their feet hitting the stone floor echoed down the hallway as they approached. He needed to distract the man in the room with him, if only for a moment. A moment was all it should have taken for security to burst into the room and apprehend Clark.

"Okay," Lex agreed, although he had absolutely no intention of following through on the promise. "I'll go camping with Clark."

The man sighed in what sounded like relief and smiled. "Good," he said. "I didn't know if you'd believe me."

Lex was shocked when the man suddenly started to fade out in front of him. Lex could see the bookcase through pseudo-Clark, and that just wasn't right. The man must have noticed what was happening to him and seemed equally shocked. He held his hands up in front of his body and looked back and forth between them and Lex.

His eyes took on a desperate look. "There's something else you need to know," he insisted.

"What?" Lex asked. He was starting to believe what this man was saying for the first time now that it was almost all over.

"I always loved you," Clark said. His voice was soft and breathy. He disappeared completely as he finished his declaration and Lex wondered if it was just his own wishful thinking that had filled in the words he'd hoped to hear for the better part of a year.

"Mr. Luthor," Dave Bond, his head of security, called out as he and his team finally reached Lex's office.

Lex snapped around to look at the man and forced himself to recover quickly from the shock of what had just happened to him. "What took you so long?" he demanded.

"Are you in danger?"

"No, Mr. Bond, I am not," Lex assured the man with a haughty tone in his voice. "Although, it is distressing to know how long it would have taken you to respond had there been, say, an intruder in my office."

"I apologize, Mr. Luthor," Dave said. He looked over his shoulder and dismissed his men with a nod of his head. "We were investigating a disturbance on the grounds."

"Oh?" Lex asked.

"Yes," Dave confirmed. "Ms. Pavich reported strange noises and a bright light from behind the stables about ten minutes ago."

Lex didn't say anything in response, but he couldn't help thinking of his strange pseudo-Clark encounter. If that man really had been Clark and he had been from the future, then the disturbance could have been him arriving. Lex could barely believe he was entertaining the possibility of believing what had just happened. He felt like he might be going insane. Was this just another one of his fantasies where Clark came to him to confess his feelings? Admittedly, it was much stranger than any he'd had in the past, but it was still possible.

"Mr. Luthor," Dave started speaking again. Lex had almost forgotten that the other man was there. If this was a dream, why was Dave there?

"I'm very sorry. I should have asked some of the men to stay behind in the manor," Dave continued.

"Yes, you should have," Lex snapped. Even though he was okay, the fact remained that if pseudo-Clark had wanted to hurt Lex, there would have been no one there to stop him.

"It won't happen again," the man assured him.

"You're right," Lex agreed. His voice was cold and flat. "It won't."

The man blanched and Lex knew that he understood that he had just been fired. "M... Mr. Luthor," the man stuttered.

"Goodbye Dave," Lex said. He turned from the man and walked back towards his desk. He heard Dave hesitate for a moment and then leave the room silently.

Lex was going to need to hire a new head of security. It wouldn't do to let the position stay open for any length of time. What had happened that afternoon couldn't be allowed to occur again. Maybe he would actually replace his entire security team. He wondered how loyal the other employees had been to Dave.

Lex felt overwhelmed. He didn't know what had gone on earlier with the man who had claimed to be Clark. He had no way of reconciling what had occurred in his office with the way he knew the world worked. There were a lot of things that Lex didn't know about what had happened that day, but one thing he knew for sure was that he needed to find out if there was any truth to what he had been told by the strange man. If time travel was real, if one really could go back in time and change the past, then Lex needed to know that.

He needed to go to the conference, see what it was that Clark wanted him to avoid, and just not let it affect him as it had before. After all, as long as he knew ahead of time that something was going to happen, it couldn't affect him the same way, could it?


	9. Timeline C - September 20, 2002

Time travel existed. Clark loved him. Time travel existed and therefore Clark loved him. Lex was still grappling with disbelief over both of those concepts.

Five days after Lex's mysterious visitor had arrived and then vanished from his study, Clark had come to see him and asked if Lex wanted to go camping over the long weekend before school started. It was exactly as pseudo-Clark had said it would be. Of course it could have been a coincidence, but Clark had never asked Lex out camping with him before. How could anyone have guessed that the boy would do it?

Lex had wanted to say yes when he saw the hope in Clark's eyes, but he couldn't. He needed to see fate out to the end. He needed to see if the rest of the prediction was true or not. So, he had turned Clark down saying that he needed to attend the conference in his father's enforced absence. It was the truth, and although Lex knew he didn't absolutely need to attend, Luthor Corp was expected to make an appearance and that meant that he should.

His father was still recovering from his injuries and learning how to live with his new disability. Lex had to go. Clark had said that he understood.

Pseudo-Clark had been right. Desiree had changed Lex's life and knowing about her beforehand hadn't seemed to help any. Clark's explanation involving meteor-enhanced pheromones at least made Lex feel somewhat less like a fool, but he still couldn't believe he had married the woman. The whole two weeks she'd been in his life seemed like a hazy dream. It was all so unreal, but it was all true.

Just as true as time travel. Lex had been changed on his trip and that was the last confirmation he needed to believe what Clark had told him. Clark had come back in time to warn Lex about Desiree. He had come back to let Lex know how he felt. Somehow, Clark had thought that those two things would create a better future than the one he had known. If that was the case, did it mean that Clark thought he and Lex needed to be together to make the future work out right?

He could do that, Lex thought with a smile. He'd wanted Clark since the first time he'd laid eyes on the younger man. Besides, time travel existed and Clark obviously either knew how it worked or would discover how it worked sometime in the future. Lex needed that knowledge. He needed Clark. It all worked out. He would be with Clark and they would make the world better together. That had to be what the elder Clark had wanted.


	10. Timeline C - October 20, 2002

"What do you think about time travel?" Lex asked Clark suddenly. The question seemed totally out of the blue. The two of them were sitting at the Kents' dining room table, and Lex was helping Clark with his homework. It was part of his mom's ongoing 'be nice to Lex' campaign that followed the incident with Nixon where Lex had saved Jonathan's life. Clark couldn't say that he wasn't enjoying it.

"I... what?" Clark asked. He raised his eyes from where he was trying to solve the value of 'x' and blinked at Lex.

"You know, time travel. What do you think about it?" Lex asked again.

Clark placed the end of his pencil against his bottom lip as he tried to determine when exactly his best friend has lost his grip on reality. "Have you been reading your H.G. Wells collection again?" Clark asked. He was only partially teasing.

"I'm serious," Lex insisted.

"Or maybe watching bad eighties movies?" Clark continued with a small smile. Sometimes he just didn't understand Lex at all. Maybe that was why he was so drawn to the man; there was always something new to discover about him.

"Clark, I'm serious," Lex insisted again and sighed heavily.

"Oh," Clark said quietly. He tapped the eraser of his pencil against his lip as he thought. "Okay, I'm sorry. I.... Lex, I'm fairly certain that time only moves in one direction."

"Yeah," Lex agreed. He looked like he was thinking hard, so Clark didn't interrupt him. "What if you could fold it somehow? So that the end was before the start. Like this piece of paper," Lex said. He reached out and retrieved the worksheet Clark was filling in. Lex held it out flat and then folded it so that then far end overlapped the near end.

"Then," Clark said thoughtfully, "I guess you'd be able to change the past." He smiled and plucked the paper back out of Lex's hands. Clark unfolded it and smoothed it out on the table in front of him.

"Yeah," Lex agreed. "Do you think that's possible?"

"Like, for real?" Clark asked. He almost couldn't believe that Lex was asking him this, but Lex was Lex. Sometimes he made very little sense.

Lex just nodded in response.

"I.... No," Clark insisted.

"Are you sure?"

"Umm... yeah."

"It's theoretically possible," Lex replied. "On a quantum level you can never really know where or when an electron will be. It moves in all four dimensions. Maybe more."

Clark looked at his friend strangely. Lex was so intelligent. He didn't know how to keep up with the older man's mind sometimes. "When did you get so interested in theoretical physics?"

"Just recently," Lex admitted. "I've been reading some books and it's fascinating."

"That's really cool," Clark said and was surprised to find that he was telling the truth. What Lex was talking about sounded interesting and what was most cool was that Lex wanted to talk with him about it. No one else treated Clark like an adult the same way that Lex did. It made him feel really special and needed.

"Maybe I can read some of them and then we can talk more," Clark offered and was gratified when he saw Lex's eyes light up.

"You're sure you don't know anything else about this?" Lex asked.

Clark looked at Lex strangely. Why would he know anything more about time travel than Lex had read in his books?

"Of course not," Lex conceded before Clark could say anything. "That sounds great, though. I have a few books that I'm done with. We can go get them now," Lex pushed his chair back from the table and started to stand up. Clark reached out and gently pulled his friend back down.

"Not now, silly," Clark insisted with a chuckle. "I still need to pass sophomore math."

"Oh," Lex said with a slightly embarrassed look. "I guess I'm just a little excited."

"I understand. Tomorrow after school?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, it's a deal. Now, can you explain how to calculate this again?" Clark asked and pointed at one of the problems on his paper. He really didn't need Lex's help. He could have solved the equation in his head, in fact he already had, but Clark wasn't ready to admit it and give up his study time with Lex.

Lex nodded and leaned in to explain it all one more time. Clark smiled contentedly.


	11. Timeline C - May 24, 2006

Clark could hardly believe that Lex was graduating. They'd been lovers four years now, and during that entire time Lex had been in school. It had become such a corner stone of their reality that it was strange to think their lives were about to make such a dramatic change. It was almost like they were finally being forced to grow up. It was scary and exhilarating all at the same time.

Lex had returned to Met U in January of 2003. He had spoken of going back to Princeton, where he'd completed his first degree, but had eventually discarded that location as being too far away. Clark hadn't known at the time, but Lex had wanted to be able to see him as much as possible.

Lex had needed to spend the spring and summer semesters in Metropolis, taking the courses that would form the basis of his second bachelor's degree in physics. Those months had been hard on both of the men. When Lex left for Metropolis, he and Clark had only been good friends. They hadn't been together, although both of them had secretly hoped for that possibility. It was when Lex returned to Smallville during spring break that Clark finally decided to give in to the attraction he'd always felt for his friend and admit his feelings. After that the two of them were together as much as possible, although it wasn't easy with Clark still in high school and Lex dealing with the rigors of college. In the ensuing months, Clark had made as many trips back and forth to the city as he could without raising his parent's suspicions too much.

After those first two semesters, Lex had managed to schedule his coarse load to allow him to spend Friday, Saturday and Sundays in Smallville. That's when he and Clark had really become close. They'd been together as often as possible and done nearly everything together. His parents had seemed concerned that Clark barely spent any time with his other friends and one day Clark simply confessed his relationship with Lex to his mother. She'd been less shocked than he had thought she would be, although she had insisted on lecturing Clark about the dangers of sex with strange men. She'd also insisted on telling Clark's father about the relationship and Clark hadn't been able to convince her otherwise.

That had been a scene. Clark's father hadn't been happy and had threatened Lex, although he eventually found there was little he could do. Clark was seventeen by the time he and Lex had started dating, and they hadn't done more than make out together when the confrontation with Clark's father occurred.

Then in January of 2004, Lex moved back to Metropolis permanently. He and Clark spoke a lot about his decision to do that, and in the end they had concluded that Lex needed to be in the city to finish his education and then take up the research that would be required when he began his master's degree that fall. As much as Clark wanted Lex to stay with him in Smallville, he'd needed to compromise and give Lex the freedom his studies required.

After completing his junior year of high school, Clark had spent most of the summer at Lex's penthouse in Metropolis. His father had protested the arrangement, but Clark was eighteen by then and legally allowed to go wherever he wanted. His mom managed to convince his father that it was better to let the matter drop since there was obviously no way to change Clark's mind.

Lex completed his degree in time to enter the master's program in September of 2004. It was where he had wanted to be all along. His research and his supervisor kept him busy and demanded much of his time. Clark visited as often as his own senior year workload would allow. He had spent a lot of time traveling between Smallville and Metropolis before he had finally admitted his powers to Lex. The older man hadn't seemed too surprised at the revelation. If anything, he'd been excited. He also seemed to suspect that there was more to Clark's story than what he had been told. It was true, but Clark still wasn't ready to admit to being an alien as well. One huge secret at a time had been enough for him.

His deadline for finally telling Lex had always been when they eventually moved in together. At his parent's insistence he had spent his first two years of university in on-campus housing. Both he and Lex had been busy with school so it had been just as we'll, but now that Lex was graduating it felt like they were entering a new stage of their relationship and Clark certainly wasn't spending another year away from his lover.

Clark was going to have to come clean soon. Lex had finally asked im to move in the night before while the two of them were lounging under the stars on the balcony of Lex's penthouse. Clark had said yes, of course. He didn't think that there had ever been any doubt in either of their minds as to what Clark's answer was going to be. If they were going to live together, be a real official couple, then Lex needed to know everything about Clark. It simply wouldn't be fair if he didn't.

Clark beamed with pride as he watched Lex walk across the stage and received his doctorate. He was congratulated and went to take his seat on stage with the others who had also received their doctorates. Lex's eyes sought Clark's and when they met, Lex's lit up. He had worked so hard for this day, had been so dedicated to following this new path in his life. Although Clark had never understood Lex's seemingly spontaneous interest in theoretical physics, he'd always supported his partner. Anything that finally managed to draw Lex out of his father's shadow had to be a good thing.

And that's what this had done. Lionel hadn't been happy about Lex leaving the family business and going back to school. He had cut Lex off from his money, but Lex hadn't been discouraged. He'd still had the money he inherited from his mother's family. He'd invested it well and it was more than enough to keep him in a comfortable lifestyle.

Lex had started to build a reputation for himself within the scientific community. Alexander Luthor was one of the rising stars in his field. He'd received job offers from half a dozen other universities, but had turned them down to stay with Metropolis University in a faculty position after his graduation. Even Lex admitted that his staying really had more to do with Clark than the quality of the job offer.

The rest of the graduation ceremony passed quickly and Clark soon found himself standing in the foyer of the auditorium with his mom waiting for Lex to come and meet them. When Clark's mom had found out that Lex would be receiving his doctorate, she had insisted on coming to the ceremony. Clark hadn't been surprised, but Lex had seemed incredibly touched. Lex's own father wouldn't be there, but his lover's mother would. He'd again told Clark how much he wished that he were part of any family other than his own. Clark had offered comfort as best as he could. He was pretty upset at Lionel as well for cutting Lex so effectively out of his life.

Clark looked down at his mom and found her smiling up at him. She looked happy and proud, almost as if it had been her own son who had just graduated. Clark only hoped that what he was going to tell her wouldn't break that mood too much.

"Mom?" Clark asked.

"Yes?"

"I just.... I wanted to let you know that I'm going to tell Lex the rest of my secret." He kept his voice low so that no one else would be able to overhear them. His mom and dad already knew that Clark had told Lex about his powers. His dad had been the one who had convinced Clark to hold back the final truth about his origins for at least a little while longer.

His mom looked up at him silently for several moments before finally nodding. "He's the one, isn't he?" she asked.

Clark knew without asking what his mom meant. When he had been nineteen, only a couple of months before he graduated from high school, he'd finally managed to get his ship working. Inside it had been information about his home planet, including a holographic representation of his birth father. The 'man' had explained many things to Clark including his powers and the ability of his people to mate for life. Apparently Clark would know when he found the right partner, and his body would instinctively 'imprint' that person. From then on, as long as they were alive, Clark wouldn't be able to love another. It had sounded horrifying and yet thrilling all at the same time.

"You know he is," Clark answered. "All of us have always known that he is."

He mom nodded in agreement. "Yes."

They'd known from the first time that Jor-El spoke of Clark's mating that his partner would be Lex. Clark hadn't been ready to give in to the fact that his fate, in this aspect of his life anyhow, had already been decided for him. He had railed against the knowledge. His mother hadn't wanted to believe because she hadn't yet been ready to give up her little boy to the man who was already his mate, and Clark's father would never accept Lex as anything other than a Luthor to be despised.

"You're not upset, are you?" Clark asked. He still wasn't sure what his mother thought of his plan.

"This is your secret, Clark," his mom said. "If you trust him with it, then you should tell him. Why right now, though?"

"He asked me to move in with him," Clark admitted with a shrug.

"And you said yes," Martha concluded.

Clark nodded. He knew that his mom had needed to change the way she thought about a lot of things when she found out that her son was in a homosexual relationship. She believed in marriage before sex and had raised Clark to believe the same thing, but marriage wasn't something that was going to be allowed to Clark and Lex, no matter how much Clark might wish for it.

"You know that I love Lex like he was my own son," his mother told him and Clark couldn't help but smile, "but he worries me sometimes. He's been so driven for the last couple of years, almost like he's obsessed with this. I worry about you getting hurt."

"Lex is, well, Lex," Clark said with a smile. "He'd never hurt me on purpose."

"And what if he does it without meaning to?" Martha pressed.

"I...," Clark trailed off. He wasn't sure that he knew what to say to that. It had happened occasionally, that Lex got so caught up in what he was doing that he forgot about things he was supposed to do with Clark. And it did hurt, but Clark had just learned how to live with those occasional slights.

"You need to learn to stick up for yourself," his mom insisted gently. "Every good relationship is like that. You need to be able to tell him when he's doing something to hurt you."

"I know. You're right. I want Lex to know everything about me. That's why I need to tell him," Clark asserted.

"Tell me what?" Clark heard from behind himself just a second before Lex's arms slipped around his waist.

Clark smiled broadly. He placed his hands over top of Lex's and drew the other man around his body so that Lex was standing in front of Clark.

"How much I love you?" Clark said softly, with just a hint of a question in his voice. He leaned in and kissed Lex. His sensitive ears picked up a couple of stray comments about their 'display', but he didn't care. He wasn't going to allow anything to ruin Lex's day.

"But I already know that," Lex protested.

"I know," Clark conceded and then became a little more serious. "Later, okay?" He knew Lex knew there was more going on and denying it would only make the older man annoyed.

"Okay," Lex agreed with his own nod. "Later."

"We're really proud of you, Lex," Clark's mom told his lover.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kent," Lex said smoothly. Clark thought he was probably the only person who could have noticed the slight pause in Lex's voice before he had spoken. Even after all the years they had been together, Lex still wasn't used to receiving sincere compliments. Clark still sometimes grieved for the lonely life Lex had lived before moving to Smallville.

"Don't you think that if you're going to be living with my son that you should start called me Martha?" she teased Lex gently. Clark's mom had asked Lex to call her Martha several times previously, but Lex had never felt comfortable doing it. Clark wondered if that would possibly change now.

"You told her," Lex said and looked up at Clark with a smirk.

"Yes."

Lex turned to look at Martha. Something serious passed across his face and Clark realized that Lex took their moving in together as seriously as Clark himself did. "I promise that I'll take good care of him," Lex told her. The words were so very sincere.

"Good," she said, her voice just as serious.

"Hey, guys. I think I can take care of myself just fine," Clark protested.

His mom looked up indulgently at him. "We know, sweetie."

"Can we take you for lunch before you head back to Smallville?" Lex asked Clark's mom and effectively changed the subject.

Martha looked down at he watch and then back up at her son and his lover. "I think I have enough time," she said agreeably.

"Excellent," Lex told her and led the three of them out of the auditorium and towards his car.

\-----

"I love your mom like she was my own, Clark, but thank God she's finally gone," Lex said with a smile as he wrapped his arms around Clark's waist.

The younger man had just finished saying goodbye to his mom and now she was headed downstairs in the elevator. The three of them had gone out to lunch and then come back to the penthouse so that Clark and his mom could do some catching up. She'd stayed most of the afternoon. It had been longer than Lex had expected. Now that she was gone, he and Clark could start their own celebration of his graduation.

Clark laughed softly and turned in Lex's arms to face the other man. He leaned in and stole a passionate kiss from Lex that Lex eagerly returned. "I thought she would never leave."

"You're the one who invited her back to visit," Lex reminded his lover.

"I didn't think that she would stay all afternoon," Clark confessed. He leaned in again so that his lips were brushing against Lex's ear. "I haven't even been able to give you your graduation present, yet."

Lex shivered at Clark's words and he felt his mouth go slightly dry. "What.... What did you get me?" he asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Clark asked in a seductive tone of voice. He pivoted the two of them around and started leading Lex towards the bedroom. Lex followed willingly. The two of them continued to kiss as they made their way across the room.

They entered the bedroom and Clark quickly removed their clothing. Clark pushed him back onto the bed and Lex moved towards the center. Clark climbed on after him and settled himself between Lex's legs. He lay on top of Lex, and leaned in to kiss him deeply.

"I love you so much," Clark told him when they eventually pulled apart.

"I love you too," Lex returned. It felt so good to be able to say those words to Clark. For so long he thought that he wouldn't be able to say them to anyone, and then Clark had come along and changed everything in Lex's world. He didn't think he would ever be able to repay his lover for that.

"And I'm really proud of you," Clark continued.

"I... I'm glad," Lex answered. He didn't know if Clark had any idea how much Lex had always wanted to hear that from someone, but he suspected that he did.

Clark smiled happy and then started to kiss his way down Lex's body. He stopped at each of Lex's nipples, licking and nipping them gently, before moving to nuzzle Lex's stomach. It felt amazing and Lex abandoned himself to the sensations that Clark was causing.

He knew what Clark's ultimate goal was, but it almost came as a shock when Clark finally slid all the way down Lex's body and took Lex's cock deep into his mouth. Lex moaned and pressed up into Clark's heat. He felt his cock slide deeply into Clark's mouth and then against the back of his throat. It was so good and then Clark started sucking in earnest and it got even better.

"Oh, God," Lex cried out. He reached down and threaded his fingers into Clark's silky hair. He pulled hard, knowing it wouldn't hurt his lover.

Clark laughed softly at Lex's desperation and the vibrations shot through Lex's cock.. He was so close, right on the edge. Clark slid his fingers down and pressed gently at Lex's entrance and it pulled Lex the rest of the way over. He gasped loudly as he exploded down Clark's throat. Clark sucked him softly until Lex was completely drained and then allowed Lex's spent cock to slip out of his mouth.

"Clark," Lex moaned when he regained his ability to speak. "That was so good."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Lex confirmed with a lazy smile.

Clark's eyes twinkled and Lex knew that they weren't done yet. "I'm going to fuck you now, Lex. Would you like that?"

Lex shivered in anticipation. "Yes," he breathed. He loved it when Clark took over their lovemaking, but the larger man was often worried that he would hurt Lex and so usually took a more passive role.

Clark leered at him. A tube of lube seemingly appeared from nowhere and Clark slicked up a finger, making sure to warm the cool gel first, and then pressed it inside Lex. He found Lex's prostate almost immediately, and Lex cried out from the shock of pleasure the touch sent through his body. His flaccid cock twitched and tried to harden again.

Clark continued to stretch Lex until he had three fingers inside him and was easily fucking him with them. "I love you so much," Clark told his partner as he withdraw his fingers and smeared some more lube on his cock.

"Mmm," Lex mumbled. He was beyond words and suspected that had been Clark's intention the entire time.

Clark smiled. He moved in, lifted Lex's legs, and positioned himself in front of Lex's opening. He pressed inside slowly and steadily, until he was fully inside Lex. He sighed when he was completely sheathed and leaned in to kiss Lex deeply.

Lex thrust up against Clark, wanting to feel the other man moving inside him. Clark smiled against Lex's lips and then started thrusting in and out of the man. Clark's movements picked up speed as he neared his own climax. Lex reached down and started to lazily stroke his own cock, which was hard once more. He knew that he wasn't going to come again so soon after the last time, but it still felt amazing to stroke himself while Clark was inside him.

"Lex," Clark cried out and then shuddered as he came deep inside Lex. Lex could feel Clark's hot come rushing into his body and he smiled happily. He had never thought that he would feel this connected to another human being. He was the luckiest man on the planet, and he knew it.

Clark collapsed onto Lex's chest and panted heavily as he came down from his orgasm. Lex wrapped his arms around his younger lover and held on tight. Eventually Clark slipped out of him and rolled over onto his side so that he could snuggle up against Lex. The two of them just lay there for a long time in sated silence.

"So," Lex prompted eventually as he ran his fingers through Clark's hair, "there was something that you wanted to tell me?"

Clark was sated and sleepy. He hadn't been anticipating Lex's question, so hearing it at that particular moment startled him. Sure, he was still planning on telling his partner about himself, but he'd thought that the other man had forgotten their earlier conversation. Clark should have known better, though. This was Lex, and Clark had rarely, if ever, known Lex to forget anything.

"I.... Yes," Clark stuttered and then blushed slightly. He hadn't meant to make it sound like he didn't want to talk about it, but somehow he had.

Lex propped himself up on his elbow and smirked down at Clark. "You thought I forgot, didn't you?" he teased gently.

"I love you?" Clark tried. He knew his attempt at evasion was futile, but he still felt that he needed to try. He was happy, warm, and content right where he was. He didn't want to have to disturb that and talking about his origins would almost certainly lead them to getting up from the bed sometime in the near future.

"Clark," Lex sighed. He still had a pleasant tone in his voice, though, so Clark knew that his boyfriend wasn't really upset yet. He just didn't like it when Clark tried to avoid talking to him about things. "You sounded so serious this morning when you were speaking with your mom. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Clark assured Lex with a nod, "everything's fine. I just... I need to tell you something." He pushed himself up in the bed so that he was sitting with his back resting against the headboard.

"You're not pregnant, are you?" Lex asked and his voice was so serious that Clark had to laugh.

If only his problem was that simple. He'd actually wished more than once that he could give Lex exactly that. The other man swore that he didn't want children, but Clark had a feeling that as Lex got older his thoughts on that subject would change. Lex would need an heir for the empire he would still undoubtedly inherit from his father, and Clark wouldn't be able to give that to him. Of course, there was always adoption or a surrogate, but knowing that still didn't stop Clark from wishing that he could carry Lex's child in his body.

"No," Clark confirmed. He took a deep breath and steeled himself to tell the truth. "Remember when I told you about my abilities?"

Lex raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Kind of hard to forget that, Clark."

"Well, I didn't tell you the whole truth," Clark admitted and looked down at his hands.

Lex reached out and placed his hand under Clark's chin. He nudged Clark's head up until he was again looking at Lex. "You didn't?"

"I know you think that I was changed by the meteors like you were, but I wasn't. I wasn't caught in the shower."

"You weren't?" Lex asked. He had a confused look on his face and seemed to be thinking hard about what he had been told. Lex came to the obvious conclusion. "Then you were born like this?" he asked. His eyes swept down the length of Clark's body.

"Yes," Clark supplied. That hadn't gone quite as he had imagined it would, but he guessed that it still worked.

"How?"

"I'm not human," Clark said in a quiet but serious voice. His eyes again left Lex's face and fastened on his fingers. This time Lex didn't reach out and move his face. The older man was silent for a long time, not saying anything, and eventually Clark glanced over at him.

Lex's eyes were narrowed. "Be serious, Clark," he demanded.

"I am serious. I'm not human. I... I came with the meteors. In a ship. My parents found me and took me in."

Again Lex didn't say anything for a long time. Clark was starting to think that he might have broken his boyfriend.

"Lex?"

"You're serious," Lex said at almost the same moment that Clark called his name. "You're not human."

"No, I'm not. I... I'm from a planet about ten light years from here. My parents sent me away because the planet was being destroyed."

"But it's been eighteen years since the shower and you're only twenty-one, Clark," Lex protested.

Clark wasn't surprised that Lex had caught on to the disparity between his age and how far away his home world was. Lex understood better than most other people on the planet how space travel over that kind of distance would work.

"There's some kind of stasis device in the ship," Clark explained. "I was three when I left my birth planet and I was still three when I landed here."

"There's a ship," Lex said suddenly as if he'd just then become fully aware of that fact.

"Umm, yeah."

"I need to see it," Lex insisted.

Clark nodded slowly. He'd expected this too. Lex was one of those people who needed to see evidence before he would believe anything. "I'll call my parents. We'll go out there sometime soon."

"No. I need to see it tonight."

"Tonight?" Clark exclaimed. He looked over at the bedside clock and then shook his head. "Lex, it's five-thirty. By the time we get out there it will be almost nine. My parents aren't going to want us poking around the farm in the middle of the night."

"Not if you take us," Lex reasoned.

Clark narrowed his eyes. "I thought you hated traveling like that?" This really wasn't like Lex at all.

"This is special. I need to see it."

"Lex," Clark sighed.

"Clark, please?"

"Is this the only way you'll believe me?"

Lex seemed to consider that for a moment and Clark wondered what was going through his lover's mind. "Yes," Lex insisted. "I need to see the ship in order to believe your story."

Clark sighed again and then started to crawl out of the bed. He couldn't believe that he was giving in so easily, but if this was what Lex needed in order to understand Clark's past, then it was what Lex would get. Clark had never been able to deny Lex much of anything.

"Okay, get dressed and I'll take us out to the farm."

"Thank you," Lex said and climbed out of bed quickly. He seemed so excited to be seeing the ship. It was just a little odd.

\-----

This had to be it. The ship had to be what contained the secret of time travel. It had to be where future-Clark had learned how to manipulate time and send himself backwards through it. If Clark's people had been able to design a ship that would send him to Earth and keep him in stasis for however many years that took, then it was a possibility that they knew about time travel as well. If nothing else, they seemed significantly more advanced than humans.

The two of them were standing inside the Kent's storm cellar looking at what had to be Clark's ship. It was small and kind of oblong with a raised circular part in the center. Lex assumed the circular part was where baby Clark would have been placed to make his journey to Earth. And didn't that just sound too unbelievable to be true?

Lex was still cold and shivering slightly from the trip out to the farm. Traveling at Clark's speed always made him feel like that, even when he was wearing two layers and a heavy jacket. He wrapped his arms around himself to try warming up.

"Well, this is it," Clark said and gestured down at the ship sitting on the floor.

Lex stepped forward and ran his fingers over the ship. It was smooth and surprisingly warm to his touch. Normal metal wouldn't feel like that, not in the middle of a May night in Kansas. He continued to trail his fingers along the surface of the ship, moving around it until he came to a small octagonal depression in the hull. His fingers slipped inside. It looked so familiar and suddenly the color and texture of the metal seemed familiar to Lex as well. His eyes snapped up and he turned to look directly at Clark.

"Yes, your paperweight," Clark confirmed and produced the small octagonal piece of metal that had once sat on Lex's desk before the tornado that had ripped through the town in 2002.

"What is it?" Lex asked and nodded at the piece of metal Clark was holding.

"A key," Clark told him.

He walked over to the ship and stood next to Lex. Lex could feel himself holding his breath, and slowly let it go. He didn't know what to expect here. What would the ship do when Clark turned it on? Lex couldn't even imagine. Clark reached out and placed the small piece of metal into its hole. Lex watched as the 'key' seemed to melt and become part of the ship. Then the whole thing rose off the ground, and started to hum and glow softly.

"Does it always do that?"

"Always," Clark assured him with a nod.

A second slot next to the key slid open. Lex looked up at Clark, curious as to what was happening, but Clark was already moving across the cellar. He grabbed another piece of metal off one of the shelves and came back over to where Lex was standing. This piece was rectangular and had strange markings across its face. Clark slid it into the slot and it melted into the ship in the same way that the key had.

Suddenly the ship was making noises that sounded like speech and Lex realized that it was speaking to Clark in a language that was so incredibly foreign that it could only be alien. Clark placed his hand on the ship and answered back in the same strange language. It was almost surreal. If Clark and the ship hadn't convinced him of the truth of Clark's origins already, this strange conversation would have. It sent a shiver up Lex's spine.

A beam of light shot out of the ship and formed into a man. A man that looked an awful lot like Clark, except older. He had the same black hair, and the same green eyes. Lex was pretty certain that this was Clark's biological father. He started speaking to Clark and Clark again answered him in the strange language. Lex was almost certain that he heard his own name somewhere in the exchange.

"Clark?" Lex asked after a few minutes of their fast exchange in the alien language. It was fascinating, but it was rapidly getting old that Lex had no idea what they were saying. He had the feeling that they were talking about him and he didn't like it.

Clark turned to look at Lex and smiled softly.

"Who or what is that?" Lex nodded towards the man.

"My father, or rather a holographic representation of my father. It's really quite good, has his personality apparently."

"What's he saying?"

"I'm telling him who you are."

"And the language?" Lex asked. He hadn't known that Clark spoke anything other than English.

"Kryptonian," Clark supplied.

"You know it?"

"I spoke it as a child and apparently it was somehow genetically programmed into me so that I would be able to speak with him when the time came."

"It's kind of weird standing here and having no idea what you're saying," Lex complained lightly.

Clark nodded and blushed softly. Lex had the feeling that maybe he hadn't even realized how discomforting it might have been for Lex. "English, Father," Clark requested.

The man looked annoyed, but only slightly. Lex was almost surprised to find that the computer, or whatever was generating the hologram, actually knew the language when he started speaking in clear unaccented English a few seconds later.

"Good day, Lex of the family Luthor, bonded mate of my son Kal-El. I am Jor-El of the planet Krypton," the man said to Lex.

Lex was so stunned to be greeted in such a way that he almost didn't know what to say. "Hello." He almost stepped forward to shake the man's hand before remembering at the last moment that he wasn't real and that he very likely didn't have a solid form.

"Wait, wait," he turned to face Clark again, "bonded mate?" he asked. It had just hit him exactly what the man had said. He could have understood mate or partner or any number of other titles, but 'bonded mate'? That implied something that Lex didn't know about.

"I...," Clark started but trailed off. He looked really uncomfortable and Lex had a good feeling that he wasn't going to like the explanation of this one, whatever it was.

"My son hasn't told you?" Jor-El asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. "We of Krypton bond to our mates for life as Clark has bonded to you. He will be able to love no other as long as you are alive."

"Is this true?" Lex demanded of Clark.

Clark looked down and scuffed his feet. It would have been endearing if the situation hadn't been so serious. "Umm, yeah."

"We're bonded in some way?" Lex continued. He liked this less and less the more he knew about it.

"You do not suffer the same fate, Lex of the family Luthor, because you are not Kryptonian. You will never be able to complete the bond with my son, and yet he is bound to you just as tightly as if he had been able to take a Kryptonian mate."

"I don't know what to say," Lex eventually said and looked at Clark to find some hint as to how he was supposed to be taking this news. On one level, he was thrilled to learn that Clark would always be with him, but on another level he worried that Clark would come to hate him because Lex would never be able to give him his freedom. Additionally, what if someday Lex himself decided that it was time to move on? It wasn't likely, but it could happen. How could he live with leaving Clark knowing that the other man would never find happiness with anyone else?

"It is the way of our people," Jor-El supplied. "It cannot be undone."

"I'm sorry, but I can't say that I mind it too much. I love you, Lex, and I always want to be with you," Clark told him. He stepped forward and placed his hand on Lex's arm. "Please don't hate me," he pleaded.

"Hate you?" Lex asked. "I don't hate you, Clark. I am worried that you might feel trapped in this enforced relationship, though." He reached up and placed his own hand on the side of Clark's face.

"I love you, Lex," Clark assured his mate. "I would never feel trapped with you."

Lex smiled and leaned in to kiss Clark. It was deep and passionate. It would have felt strange kissing like this in front of Clark's other father, but Jor-El wasn't really there and he didn't say anything to them. He simply waited until they were finished.

Lex turned back to face Clark's father and asked the question he'd been dying to ask since they'd entered the storm cellar and Lex had become certain that Clark wasn't simply taking him for a ride. "Your people were a space-faring race?"

"We were," Jor-El confirmed with a nod.

"For how long?"

The man seemed to think for a moment and then nodded. "For approximately ten of your centuries. We ruled an empire, but eventually it gave way to a new order. An ancient enemy defeated us in battle and destroyed our planet. What is left of our people is scattered over a hundred different planets."

"So Clark isn't the last of your people?"

"No," the man confirmed, "but he is the only Kryptonian on this planet. From what information I have been able to gather about your technology, it is unlikely that he will ever be able to leave and join the rest of our people."

"That's what I'd like to talk to you about," Lex supplied. Space travel was almost as exciting as time travel, and if it would allow Clark to be reunited with his people then there was nothing that Lex wanted more. He couldn't even imagine how lonely it must have been for Clark knowing that there was no one like him on the entire planet.

"Lex is a physicist like you, Father," Clark supplied.

Lex's eyebrow rose. It just kept getting better and better here. Clark had a ship from an alien planet. The hologram inside knew about their technology and was a physicist. It was like Lex's dream come true.

The man nodded and looked directly at Lex. "Intelligence is always a good quality in a mate."

Lex nodded back, but didn't know how to respond to that. "I would like to speak with you about your technology. Can I do that?"

"Yes," Jor-El supplied. "What do you want to know?"

Clark sighed and placed his hand on Lex's arm. "Not tonight, Lex. I'm tired. I just wanted you to meet him. We can come back sometime soon."

Lex didn't want to leave, but he understood that Clark didn't want to stay there the entire night. It had been a long day. Lex nodded his acceptance of Clark's suggestion. "Can I come and see you on my own?" Lex asked Jor-El. It wasn't that he didn't want to come with Clark, but he wanted to be able to come wherever he wanted. And some of the stuff that he wanted to ask, he didn't really want to do in front of Clark. He didn't want to get the other man's hopes up too high before he was sure of anything.

"Clark can set the ship so that it will activate in your presence."

"There is so much I want to know," Lex said.

"I will tell you what I can, Lex of the family Luthor," Jor-El promised and bowed slightly to Lex.

"Is that okay with you?" Lex asked Clark.

"Yeah," Clark conceded with a shrug. "You're stuck with me. My ship is your ship."

Lex smiled. Being with Clark was the best decision he ever could have made.


	12. Timeline C - May 28, 2006

Lex's phone was ringing. It had rung twice in the last half an hour. Whoever was calling obviously wanted to get hold of him, and pretty badly at that. He sighed, apologized to the man he was speaking with, and finally answered the caller.

"What?" he asked testily.

"Lex?"

"Clark," Lex returned in a softer voice. "Sorry about that. What can I do for you?"

"Where are you?"

Lex looked around himself, took in the storm cellar, the space ship and the sight of Clark's Kryptonian father. He wasn't sure that he was really ready to admit to his boyfriend that he had run off to Smallville to talk to the man so soon. "I'm doing some research. Do you need something?" It was strange that Clark was calling him in the middle of the day on a Monday. He usually worked Mondays and it was rare that Clark would call from his job.

"Do you know where I am, Lex?" Clark asked. He sounded irritated and Lex tried to remember what on Earth it was that he might have forgotten that could have put Clark into that mood.

"Work?" Lex guessed. He really hoped that was the case.

"Lex," Clark sighed. "I'm at the penthouse. I'm supposed to be moving in today. Did you completely forget?"

He actually had completely forgotten. "I'm sorry," Lex apologized. "I just got busy and it slipped my mind."

"Well come home. You're supposed to help me decide where to put this stuff," Clark demanded. Lex was sure his boyfriend was irritated now. He would never normally have been so short with anyone.

"I can't. Not right away anyhow."

"Why not?"

"I'm three hours from Metropolis."

Clark paused before speaking again. "You're in Smallville, aren't you?" he eventually asked.

"Yes," Lex admitted. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I'll be waiting," Clark said shortly and terminated the call.

Lex looked at the phone for a moment before placing it back into his pocket. Clark was annoyed and Lex wasn't sure if it was because Lex had forgotten that he was moving in that day or because he had come out to see Clark's father so soon after his last visit. It was probably a bit of both, if Lex was going to be entirely truthful about it.

"I'm sorry, Jor-El," Lex addressed the hologram of his lover's father, "we're going to have to continue this later."

The man bowed slightly and then disappeared. Lex retrieved that key and the tablet from the ship and headed home as quickly as possible.


	13. Timeline C - January 26, 2007

"Clark," his mom exclaimed as she opened the front door and saw her son standing on the porch.

Clark smiled up to her and tried not to look as upset as he felt. He hadn't thought that he would be out here visiting his parents that night, but there wasn't really anywhere else for him to go. Lex had buried himself in his work and his lab again. They'd moved the spaceship into Lex's lab a couple of months before, and since then prying Lex out of the place had been almost impossible. his mom had turned out to be right. Lex was obsessed and it hurt so badly to know that Clark was second best to his work. He didn't know what to do, though. He needed to make this relationship work because of the bond, but he had to admit that without it he might have already walked away.

"Hi, Mom," Clark greeted her and stepped towards the inside of the house. His mom moved backwards so that he could enter.

"Is Lex with you?" she asked. She seemed confused and more than a little concerned. She tried to look behind Clark to see if Lex was still out in the yard.

"No," Clark told her. "I'm here by myself."

"Honey?"

"I know," Clark sighed. "He's working."

"But it's your birthday," she protested.

"I don't think he even noticed this year. You're right, Mom. Lex is obsessed with his work. It's been bad since he graduated and it's only gotten worse since November when we moved the ship to his lab. Now he's there all the time. I barely see him anymore."

"Ah, sweetie," Martha said with sympathy in her voice. "Come in and sit down." She ushered him inside and pushed Clark towards one of the couches in the living room. She closed the door behind him and moved to join him on the couch.

"I'm just so unhappy lately," Clark said softly when his mom sat down next to him.

"Have you talked to Lex about this?"

"I... I've tried, but he doesn't seem to listen. He always tells me that it will get better, and it does for a while, but then he always goes back to his old habits. He stays at the lab so late. By the time he gets home I'm usually asleep."

"Ah, Clark."

"We never do anything together. I don't think he loves me anymore, Mom," Clark said with a quiver in his voice. He felt like he was on the verge of tears. "Sometimes I just want to leave, but I know that I can't. I can't leave because no matter what I do, I'll leave my heart there with him. I love him so much. This isn't fair."

His mom pulled him into her arms and just held him. "I know this is hard, Clark. There's got to be some way for you to get through to him, because you're right. With this bond, you're always going to love him. This is why I was always so worried about it."

"I never thought it would be like this, Mom," Clark said with a soft sniffle.

"I know, Clark. No one ever thinks that they'll have problems in their marriage, but it happens to almost everyone. That's why you need to speak with him. I know you love him and I know that he loves you too. That's more than a lot of people have. There has to be some way that you can work this out."

"I'm so tired."

"I know. Do you want to spend the night here?"

"Can I?"

"Of course," Martha told her son. "You'll always be welcome here, no matter what."

"What about Dad?"

"Dad will always love you, Clark. He just doesn't always agree with the choices that you make in your life and he's stubborn. Reminds me of someone else I know," she commented with a fond look.

Clark nodded slowly. "Thanks, Mom," he said and hugged her tightly.

"I'll always love you, Clark."

"Me too, Mom," Clark returned. He needed to talk to Lex and work this out. There weren't a lot of other alternatives. He couldn't very well leave Lex, could he?


	14. Timeline C - July 16, 2018

Space travel came first. Mostly because Jor-El insisted that it was the first step and because he wouldn't answer any of Lex's questions regarding time travel until he had mastered faster than light technology. So Lex and Jor-El worked hard for five years to get Lex's ftl drive working. Lex had left the university and started his own private aerospace company after the first two years. He needed the freedom that it gave him and he couldn't deal with the demands on his time at the university. At the end of their five years, they had a working ship large enough for two people that didn't need to be launched. It could easily take off from a runway at LuthorSpace.

Soon Lex's company was building ships for NASA and the human race was going places that they had never imagined they would reach in their lifetimes. It was truly exciting and Lex was right in the middle of it with Clark at his side.

Clark and Lex eventually started trying to contact the rest of Clark's people. They broadcast a number of messages in the language of Clark's home world on the subspace frequencies that Jor-El suggested. Nothing came of it for so long that Lex had almost forgotten about it until he turned on the news that morning and seen the alien ships on the screen.

He quickly made a recording of the newscast, then got Clark, and the two of them rushed over to see Jor-El. He gave them the worst possible news. It was what Lex had been dreading hearing since he had first seen the ships. These were the enemies of Clark's people, the Sengari. They must have been attracted by Lex and Clark's messages in Kryptonian and now they had come to Earth to see who had sent them.

"Shit," Lex swore loudly when he heard Jor-El's news.

"Yeah," Clark breathed.

"What do you think, Father?" Clark asked Jor-El.

"They've been attempting to communicate with us for the last 30 minutes. Luckily, very few people possess communication devices that can pick up the frequency they are transmitting on. They're here for Kal-El since he sent the message. And they don't have a good track record when meeting new races," Jor-El supplied.

"They like to conquer first and ask questions later?" Clark asked wryly.

"Yes," Jor-El confirmed.

Lex could feel the blood draining from his face. "And we're still pretty young, technology wise," he concluded with a nod. Although the two of them and Jor-El had tried to make sure that humanity would be able to defend itself if it needed to, their technology was still vastly inferior to a race that had managed to virtually destroy the Kryptonians.

"I need to talk to them," Clark insisted.

Lex didn't want to agree, but he had to. As much as he hated exposing Clark, he couldn't see any way around it. If Clark spoke to the Sengari, they would know who he was, but if he didn't speak to them then they might simply come looking for him. Lex didn't think that would end well and he knew Clark wouldn't be able to live with the consequences of a war. Lex found that he didn't think he could live with that either.

Clark moved over to the console that would allow him to communicate with the alien ship. It had been specially designed by Jor-El and built by Lex's company. There were only a few of them in existence currently, but they were poised to take over the telecommunications market as soon as building a portable model became cost-effective.

Clark tuned the receiver to the frequency Jor-El told him the aliens were transmitting on and almost immediately harsh words in the strange language that Lex still couldn't understand filled the large room. It went on for a while and then stopped and seemed to cycle back through to the start of the message. Clark looked scared and that only made Lex feel worse. He'd never meant to expose Clark to anything like this. He'd only wanted to know the secret of time travel and along the way had picked up this drive to reunite Clark with what was left of his race. It was a just and noble cause, or at least as just and noble as Lex was capable of taking on.

Clark started responding in the same language before he translated the message for Lex. Lex stepped forward and grabbed Clark's arm. "Clark," he hissed. "Tell me what they want."

Clark ignored him for a moment and finished saying what he was trying to communicate. Lex knew he couldn't stop his partner from doing the things that he really wanted to do, but Clark usually consulted with Lex before he made major decisions like this. Lex didn't like not being consulted, especially about something as potentially dangerous as this.

Clark turned and looked at Lex. "They said that they're looking for the one that sent the message and that if he's not presented to them that they will randomly attack until he shows himself."

Lex felt sick. "What?" he demanded. He couldn't believe this was happening. "What makes them think that you would give in to their demand?"

"We were an inherently noble people, Lex-Luthor," Jor-El said smoothly. After all these years, Lex still found it strange the way the man overlapped his names as if they were one. No amount of coaxing had convinced him to stick with just Lex. "The Sengari know that Clark would rather sacrifice himself than see anyone else on this planet hurt. They used this tactic against us many times in battle."

"Clark, what did you tell them?"

"I told them that I am Kal-El of Krypton and that it was I who sent the message," Clark said smoothly.

He drew himself up to his full height and Lex caught a glimpse of the man Clark would have been had his planet not been destroyed and he had stayed on Krypton. Jor-El had told Lex that Clark's family had been great leaders in their government and powerful men and women who had lead their people into battle many times. Lex didn't doubt it. Clark was magnificent when he was like this.

Lex nodded but didn't say anything. He wanted to insist that Clark shouldn't have revealed himself, but he had agreed to making contact with the aliens and it was really too late to protest now that Clark had already acted.

A light started blinking on the console. Clark looked down at it and nodded his head. "They are making contact directly with us," he informed Lex.

Clark reached out and pressed a button on the console and suddenly the screen filled with the image of another alien being. What surprised Lex the most was that he looked so human. He had discussed the Kryptonian's theory of a 'seed race' with Jor-El in the past, but Lex had never given it much credit. Now he was starting to understand why the theory was needed. Humans, Kryptonians, and Sengari were apparently almost indistinguishable from one another by appearance alone.

The alien started speaking in Kryptonian. Lex knew Clark was too busy to translate for him. He turned back to Jor-El for help. The other man nodded and started quietly translating the conversation for Lex.

"...Hornam of the Sengari Republic. I am looking for the one named Kal-El who sent the message to the Kryptonian people."

"That is me," Clark answered.

"Kal-El, son of Jor-El. You look much like your father," the alien man said. "You are to be arrested and tried for the crimes of your family against the Sengari Republic."

Clark blinked at that. It wasn't what he had been expecting at all. It wasn't what any of them had been expecting to hear, except perhaps Jor-El, although he had been suspiciously quiet about the whole issue of why the Sengari might have come looking for Clark.

"I will not be tried for events that I had no part in," Clark responded and Lex breathed a sigh of relief. Clark wasn't going to submit without a fight. It was reassuring.

"Under Sengari law, you can be held responsible for the actions of your family. We will have satisfaction for the crimes committed against us by your father and uncle. We are sending a ship to your location to retrieve you now. If you do not come willingly, we will take you by force."

"No," Lex insisted loudly.

"What did they do?" Clark demanded of the alien man.

"Your father developed an extremely powerful weapon that was able to penetrate our defenses for a time. Your uncle led an attack on a colony world using that weapon. It killed millions of civilians," Hornam explained.

Lex felt his stomach drop out from underneath him. This man who had just explained to them that Clark's people were inherently noble surely couldn't have been involved in an attack on civilians. Clark spun around to face Jor-El.

"Is that true?" he asked.

"We were told that the world was a military outpost," Jor-El said with no emotion in his voice. Lex had to remind himself that the man wasn't really a man, that he was just a hologram with Jor-El's memories.

"All those people died because of you?"

"We did not know, Kal-El," Jor-El insisted. "We were fighting a war for our very existence."

Clark grimaced and then turned back to Hornam. "No harm will come to the humans?"

"Clark," Lex gasped.

"We care not for this planet. The inhabitants are but children. I am surprised they have even made it out into the galaxy," the man assured Clark. Something inside Lex was insisting that he was lying.

"Clark, he's lying," Lex insisted and shook Clark's arm as hard as he could.

"And if I don't come?" Clark probed.

"We will punish the inhabitants of this planet for your insolence," Hornam assured him.

"He's lying," Lex insisted. "You know that he will attack regardless of whether you go or not."

Clark looked at him and then turned to face his father. "Is he lying, Father?"

"He could be," Jor-El admitted. He continued to speak in English so that the Sengari could hopefully not understand him. When the man on the screen made no indication of understanding the exchange, Lex was fairly certain. "The Sengari have used trickery in the past to get what they wanted."

Clark considered that for a moment before responding. He turned to look at Lex and there was sadness in his eyes. He reached out and took Lex's hands in his. "Lex, even if I hide, they'll only look for me. They know I'm here and they obviously want me. I can't hide and allow innocent people to be hurt or killed for me. I can't," Clark said and his eyes pleaded 'don't ask that of me'.

Lex swallowed thickly and nodded. Tears pricked at his eyes but didn't fall. This was not the time for that. He needed to be strong for Clark now.

"I love you, Clark," Lex said. 'I can't lose you now,' his brain screamed but Lex couldn't bring himself to voice the thought.

What Lex said wasn't what Clark had been expecting to hear, but when Lex let go of Clark's arm and stepped back slightly, Lex knew the other man understood. Lex was going to let Clark go because it was the only choice that Clark could ever make. Clark needed to do this. He needed to be the hero one last time even if it meant that this time he wouldn't be coming back. Clark loved Lex, but the rest of humanity was too much of a price to pay to be allowed to stay.

"Thank you," Clark whispered. He turned back to the console and told Hornam that he would be coming.

"Their ship is arriving now," Clark told Lex and Jor-El a moment later. "Father, you need to hide so that they do not find you. Lex will reactivate you once we're gone."

Jor-El bowed slightly to both Clark and Lex and then vanished. Lex was left alone with Clark for the last time and found that he didn't know what to say.

"It'll be okay," Clark assured him and reached out to run a soothing hand along the side of Lex's face. "I love you."

"I love you too, Clark. I... I don't know what I'll do without you."

"You'll go on, Lex. You'll live and make me proud of you. You need to help these people now. Jor-El will show you how." Clark knew that he wouldn't ever be coming back. Lex's throat tightened and he started to find it hard to breathe.

The first alien man entered the building and Lex felt a sob being torn from his throat. He stepped up to Clark and wrapped the larger man in his arms. They kissed deeply and passionately for a long moment. The Sengari people seemed to sense the emotion of the moment and didn't intervene. Lex was secretly grateful. He needed this last moment with Clark more than anything else in the world.

"I love you," Lex whispered as he finally pulled away.

"I love you too," Clark said with a sad smile. He slipped out of Lex's arms and turned to the aliens.

Then they were again speaking in the alien language that Lex didn't understand. They took Clark and led him out of the building. Clark didn't look back. Lex was glad. He didn't want Clark to remember him with tears streaming down his face.


	15. Timeline C - July 20 to 29, 2018

It hadn't worked. Lex had been right; the Sengari were lying. They had taken Clark but they hadn't gone away. They hung in orbit around the planet for the next four days, and there was no further communication from them. Lex ached to speak with them and try to find out what was happening to Clark, but he also feared the answer he might receive. He hadn't asked Jor-El, but he had seen the answer in the other man's eyes. The punishment for Clark's 'crime' was death. The thought of his beautiful Clark dead or dying in some alien ship was more than Lex could bear. For four days he felt like he was going to snap, sat on the edge of insanity and just waited, and then the worst happened.

The attack came early in the evening. The sun was just setting over the horizon. Lex was sitting on the balcony of the penthouse he had shared with Clark for so many years and watching it sink lower and lower into the sky. Clark had always loved this time of day and Lex couldn't even begin to count the number of times he and his lover had come out here to watch the day end.

It was a crack, like lightning striking, but the sky was clear and no storms were forecast. A boom followed and then a blinding flash of light. When he could see again, Lex looked towards the source of the sound and the light. The entire downtown core seemed to be on fire. Lex blinked several times to clear his eyes, but the sight remained. The smell was starting to reach him then and it seemed to convince his mind that something horrible was happening.

Lex didn't hesitate. He grabbed what little he would need from the penthouse and went immediately to the underground facility he and Clark had built in Smallville. It was located underneath the farm that Clark had inherited from his parents when they had both been killed in a car accident two years previously. They had originally built the facility in response to Jor-El's urgings. He had wanted Clark to build it somewhere cold, preferably in Antarctica. Clark had refused, it was simply too far away, but eventually they had agreed on an underground location.

Lex was thankful that he'd had the foresight to retrieve Jor-El's power cell from LuthorSpace the day that Clark had been taken so that he didn't need to return there. He knew that he would need the alien man's insight to understand what happened in the future.

The compound was where he first turned on the news broadcasts and found out that the Sengari were attacking seemingly random locations all over the planet. Lex couldn't believe it. He had given up Clark and it had been pointless; they were still attacking.

Lex didn't have time to grieve, though. Almost immediately after reaching the facility, his phone was ringing. He answered it and found that it was Dan Rainer calling from NASA to get Lex's opinion on the defensive capabilities of the ships Lex's company had built. He spent the better part of the next two days working with NASA and Washington to organize some type of defense. He refused to leave the compound, though. He and Clark had built the place to withstand almost anything, and it was likely the safest location on the planet.

On July 24, Lex lost contact with Washington. The day after he started hearing rumors that the capitol had been all but destroyed. Almost all the news broadcasts were down, so the reports came trickling in over the radio. Lex had found an old receiver that Clark had stashed in the compound just in case. He listened to it whenever he could.

After the 28th, the attack seemed to stop, and Lex ventured out into the ruined countryside. He felt somewhat like a coward for hiding, but he had helped in the only way he could, by providing information to the people who needed it. After all, he figured, it made no sense to get himself killed in a conflict that he knew they had no chance of winning. He had asked Jor-El about that probability and the man had been very clear on that point. They couldn't win. All they could hope to do was survive and fight back sometime in the future.

When he went to the surface, Lex was surprised to find that the town seemed to have been barely touched by the attack. He spoke to several people in Smallville that day. They were all scared and demoralized and told him stories of major centers in ruins. They didn't know what to do and they didn't have any idea why they had been attacked. Lex didn't know the answers to those questions any better, but he definitely felt like he was in a better position to get them.


	16. Timeline C - July 30, 2018

Lex woke to a warning that there was someone outside the compound. No one was supposed to know that this facility was located below the farm, or even how to get down to enter it, so the warning was more than mildly disturbing. Lex rolled out of bed, pulled on his robe, and quickly moved to the security panel. He turned on the monitor and the image of a blonde woman holding a very young child appeared on the screen. At first he didn't recognize her, but then she turned and looked directly at the camera and Lex knew.

"Chloe," he breathed. Clark must have told her about the compound at some point and now she was here seeking some kind of refuge. Lex had no idea how she'd gotten there all the way from Boston through the chaos that had marked the last week, but somehow she had, and he found that he was happy to see her. This woman was one of his last ties to the man he had loved more than anything else in the world.

He activated the mechanism that would unlock the door and then headed over to the entrance to greet her.

"Lex," she gasped when she saw him as the door opened. "I'm so sorry. I had nowhere else to go and Clark always told me that if something awful happened I should come here and I would be safe."

Lex nodded. "Come in," he invited her and ushered her in before closing the door soundly behind her. It locked again, the heavy steel bars sliding through concrete and sealing them inside once more.

"How did you get here?" Lex asked her as soon as they were securely inside.

"I was lucky. I was on an assignment in the middle of nowhere when the attacks began. If I had been in the city, I would have died with everyone else. I remembered what Clark told me, and I came here. I moved mostly at night and hid during the day. I stayed out of the cities. You know that most of the countryside was untouched? Seems like they were only interested in eliminating population bases larger than a million."

Chloe shifted the child in her arms as she spoke and it made a soft mewling sound. The child was indeed small, and younger than Lex had originally guessed. Wisps of soft, blonde hair curled around its head and when it opened its eyes, they were a clear green color.

Chloe looked down at the child as well. "I don't know her name, but I've been calling her Hope. Her mother was dead and I couldn't just leave her there to die as well," Chloe explained.

"She's not yours," Lex said with a nod. He had just assumed, but of course Clark would have said something to him if Chloe had been pregnant. She had always remained his best friend even after she moved halfway across the country to take a job at a rival newspaper.

"No."

"She just looks like you, is all," Lex said and then shook his head to clear it.

"I know. Where's Clark?" Chloe asked the question that Lex had been dreading since the moment he had first seen her standing outside the complex. She looked around, trying to find the other man.

Lex didn't know what to say. How could he explain something like this to anyone? Clark had sacrificed himself to prevent an attack on Earth that still happened anyhow. None of his friends would want to hear that. He remained silent and eventually Chloe's eyes came back to rest on his. She must have seen the answer in them.

"Oh, Lex," she gasped and raised her hand to cover her mouth. "No. Not Clark."

"Yes," Lex confirmed sadly.

"I'm so sorry."

"Me too," Lex told her. He didn't want to dwell on this. He couldn't dwell on it right then. "You look exhausted. Do you want to take a shower and then get some sleep?"

"Yes," she told him. She sounded so grateful. Lex could only imagine the nightmare she had been through in the last few days. "You have hot water?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Fusion generator in the basement. It's perfectly safe," he added when he saw the look of surprise on her face.

"That sounds great," she told him.

Lex led her to the bathroom and showed her where everything was. He offered to get her a sweat suit that she could change into. They would wash her clothing that day and then go out into town tomorrow to hunt for more things in her size.

"Let me take Hope while you shower," Lex offered. He reached out and took the strangely silent child from Chloe's arms. "Is she always this quiet?" he asked her. He didn't know much about babies, but he did know that they weren't usually like this.

Chloe nodded. "I think she might be deaf. I'm not sure. Hardly ever cries, though."

"Oh," Lex answered. That would explain it, he guessed.

"There's formula in my bag," Chloe told him and reached down to dig it out. "I got it from an abandoned convenience store on the way, but I was afraid to give her any because I didn't know if the water was safe."

"The water here is safe," Lex assured her and took the package from Chloe. "Don't worry. Shower, get changed, and we'll talk more when you're done."

"Okay," she said and smiled weakly. "Thank you so much."

Lex nodded and then turned to leave. The door shut behind him softly.

"Jor-El?" Lex called and the hologram of Clark's father appeared next to him.

"Yes, Lex-Luthor?"

"I think it's time to talk seriously about time travel."


	17. Timeline C - September 15, 2018

"You're what?" Chloe asked in surprise and stared at Lex. She couldn't believe what she thought she had just heard come out of his mouth. She knew that the man was brilliant, there had never really been any question of that, but now she was starting to wonder if that intellect had come with more than a hint of insanity as well.

"You heard me," Lex insisted. He was sitting at his desk making what looked like detailed notes and drawings. He hadn't turned to look at Chloe since she'd come into the room and demanded to know what he had been doing holed up in that room for the last five days.

"I did," she admitted. "I just didn't think that the sleep depravation had gone to your head quite this much."

"I'm fine, Chloe," Lex said with a sigh and finally turned around to face her. She saw the redness around his eyes and the lines on his face and knew that he was anything but 'fine'. "I really am working on a time machine."

"Lex, there's no such thing," Chloe insisted.

"Yet."

Chloe reached out and placed a hand on Lex's shoulder. "Lex, come one. I need your help. You need to concentrate your efforts on something more worthwhile. I know you miss Clark. God knows I miss him too, but this isn't going to bring him back to you."

"That's not what I'm trying to do," Lex growled. "It is possible to change the past and that's what I'm going to do."

"How?"

"You won't understand," Lex said and moved to turn away from Chloe.

She kept her grip tight on his shoulder and didn't let him go. "I'm not stupid. Make me understand," she demanded.

"Fine," Lex said with a sigh. "What do you know about physics?"

"Just the stuff from high school," Chloe admitted.

Lex sighed again. He sounded like he was annoyed that he was going to have to explain more than he had hoped would be necessary. Chloe didn't care. This might be Lex's place, but she wasn't going to stand idly by while he consumed valuable resources and produced nothing worthwhile. Organizing the newly formed resistance was a lot of work and she could really use Lex's help.

"Okay, when you shoot a single photon at a barrier with two vertical slits in it, you get an interference pattern on photographic paper when it's placed behind. Do you remember that?" Lex asked.

Chloe nodded. It sounded vaguely familiar. Physics wasn't really something that she had paid a great deal of attention to in school. She had never thought that she would need any of the knowledge ever again.

"Do you remember why?"

"No," Chloe admitted.

"Well one theory, and the one you were probably taught in class, is that the single photon turned into a wave of energy. As that wave hits the barrier, a new wave front emerges from each of the slits and they overlap each other causing the interference that shows up on the photographic paper."

"Okay," Chloe said with a nod. She didn't really understand how a photon could turn into a wave, but she was willing to believe that Lex did.

"Another theory is that the universe actually splits and becomes two separate universes. In this theory, one photon, which is still a particle, goes through the left slit and the other goes through the right slit. Then, since there's no difference between these two universes, they collapse back onto each other, and that's what causes the interference present on the photographic paper."

Chloe nodded again. She understood even less of this theory than of the first one, but again she could only trust that Lex knew what he was talking about.

"So, all of that means that there's an experimental reason to believe that parallel universes may exist," he said.

"But how do you know?" Chloe demanded.

"I don't," Lex admitted, "but Jor-El does, and he says that the second theory is correct. The universe can and does split into separate universes all the time."

"Okay," Chloe said. The strange man had been right on everything else he'd told them, and Lex had seemed to trust his knowledge implicitly. Who was she to question it? "So, I get it. There are parallel universes. How does that lead to time travel?"

"In quantum mechanics, we have something called the uncertainty principle. It states that you can't possibly know both the location and the velocity of a particle with complete precision. They have an inverse relationship with each other. If you were to place a single electron within a box and then slowly crush the box to pinpoint the location of the electron, you would find the electron beginning to move with ever greater velocity."

Chloe nodded, still not understanding how any of this related to Lex's obsession with time travel. Her acknowledgement provided him with encouragement to continue.

"If we expand that principle to include the fourth dimension, time, as part of the definition of location, we can theorize that particles may be moving randomly through time. Combine that with the fact that we know parallel universes exist, and we get a framework for time travel. If we can make things move infinitely fast, then we can get them to move through time to a known location within a few meters and moments of our target."

"And that's possible?" Chloe asked.

"Yes," Lex assured her. "We're building a machine that will do that right now. That's why I've been down here for days on end. The plans are almost complete."

"But what do you hope to accomplish?"

"I need to change the past so that this doesn't happen."

"How?"

"I...," Lex started and then stopped. He looked at her seriously like he was trying to decide whether or not he could trust her. Eventually he nodded to himself. "When I was 22, I had a visit from a future version of Clark. He told me some things, but mostly he convinced me that time travel was possible. It was that conviction that eventually led to everything that has happened afterwards," Lex admitted.

"What?" Chloe asked in surprise.

"It's true," Lex insisted.

"So... so where is this other Clark?"

"He disappeared from the timeline," Lex admitted. "I assume that it's because as he changed the future, his universe ceased to exist and collapsed in on itself."

"But," Chloe protested, "doesn't that mean that if you go back there that you will cease to exist as well?"

"Yes," Lex admitted. "But Jor-El assures me that there's a device we can build to ground me in this timeline and allow me to return to it."

"Oh."

"You understand why I need to do this?" Lex asked.

"I... I guess," Chloe admitted. "But it would be really nice if I could get some help from you once in a while. What I'm doing isn't easy either, you know?"

Lex's eyes snapped up and he looked directly at Chloe. He seemed to think for a moment and then he had the grace to look just slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I guess I wasn't thinking about that. I get like this, really focused on one thing. Clark used to have to kick my ass all the time as well." A smile spread across Lex's face as he spoke of Clark.

Chloe smiled back softly in response. Clark would always be a huge part of both of their lives.

"You need me to do something?"

"We have a meeting tonight with Robert and Susan," Chloe informed him. "I'd appreciate it if you were there." Robert and Susan had managed to organize a bunch of people from some of the other small towns in the county. They were interested in joining Chloe's effort to form a resistance. She was confident in her own abilities to organize the effort, but she also knew that Lex's presence would lend credibility to her.

"When?"

"Seven," she supplied.

"I'll be there," Lex promised.

Chloe nodded in response. She still didn't really understand what Lex was doing, although she now believed in his ability to accomplish it. And she had gotten what she had wanted, his promise that he would help her. She just wondered how many more times she would need to kick his ass before both of their projects were completed.


	18. Timeline C - September 24, 2019

"Everything will be fine, Chloe," Lex assured the woman standing in front of him looking so concerned. "We've built the machine exactly as Jor-El specified and all the test materials that we've sent back have made it safely into the past."

"What if you get lost? What if you can't come back?" she asked with nervousness in her voice. Chloe was strong, had proven herself that way over the last year that she'd been living with Lex, but he knew that she was really worried about losing him forever.

"The tethers will prevent it, you know that, Chloe. I'll be gone for four hours and then I'll be snapped back here to this time."

"You have the one for Clark?"

"Yes," Lex assured her and rolled the small device over in his hand. Jor-El had also assured Lex that giving the time-traveling Clark the second tether would stop him from disappearing from the timeline Lex was going back to and allow the other man to come across to Lex's timeline. Lex missed Clark every day and though he knew bringing this other Clark back wasn't going to be like having his own Clark again, he still had to try it.

His plan was to contact the future Clark from his own past and to prevent him from speaking to Lex. Lex was certain that if he never knew about time travel then the events in his own future would never have happened. He would never have become obsessed. He would never have worked so hard to develop space travel and ultimately to try and contact Clark's people.

"And if you don't come back?" Chloe persisted.

"Then you go on without me. We both know that you've been the real leader of the resistance since we started it. I've just been a figurehead, someone that everyone knew, a person they could rally around. It's been your leadership that's allowed us to do what we have so far," Lex told her.

"Lex," Chloe protested.

"It's true."

It was true. Lex and Chloe realized early on that they needed to organize some sort of resistance. The world had fallen apart and they were the only ones who had any idea why it had happened. They worked secretly to draw together as many people as possible to fight the aliens who were still occupying their planet. Now their plans were nearing fruition. In only a couple months, Chloe's forces would attack the main alien base and overwhelm it. At the same time, a ship would launch from what used to be LuthorSpace with a specially designed weapon on board that would hopefully destroy the Sengari ship. If it worked, they would at least be liberated for a time. With any luck it would be long enough to build some defenses before the next Sengari ship arrived.

Chloe eventually nodded. "I would miss you."

"I know. That's why I have to come back, for you and for Hope," Lex assured her. An image of the little girl that he now thought of as his daughter flashed through his mind. She wasn't there to see him off. Both he and Chloe had thought it wouldn't be a good thing for her to see. He had said goodbye to her that morning and kissed her on the cheek before leaving her to play with the other children who now lived in the compound.

"Be safe."

"I will," Lex promised.

He stepped back away from the woman who had become like a sister to him over the last year and stepped into the machine. The door slid shut in front of him and Lex suddenly had a strange feeling of claustrophobia. The pod was built for two, himself and the other Clark whom he hoped to be bringing back, but it was still confining.

This had to work; he had to change this future in at least one reality. He understood, though, that when he arrived back in his own time, nothing would have changed. That's what the tethers were for. He had considered being selfish and not returning, but he couldn't leave Chloe and Hope here alone if there was a way for him to come back. The most he could hope for was to change some other Lex's future. It would just have to be good enough.

The machine was pre-set. All Lex needed to do was press a button to start the cycle. He reached forward and pressed.


	19. Timeline B - August 15, 2002

Lex knew that future-Clark would be entering the timeline from a location behind the stables, so Lex had purposefully picked a location on the exact opposite side of the grounds. Dave's people would be swarming the stables and would never notice another intruder. That exact incompetence was what had gotten the man fired in the first place, but now Lex was able to use it to his own advantage.

He entered the castle and quickly moved to the hallway that he knew Clark would be in within moments. He needed to intercept the man far enough away from his old office that this past Lex wouldn't hear Clark in the hallway. Lex just knew that he needed to erase this visit from history. This visit from Clark was what had caused Lex to become obsessed with time travel. It was what had caused him to change the course of his own life and eventually build the ship and the transmission device that would attract the Sengari. That couldn't happen. This new future had to be free of any trace of Lex's obsession.

Lex stood at the top of the stairs in the shadows and waited for Clark to arrive. It didn't take long. After only a minute of waiting, future-Clark was mounting the stairs and heading towards past-Lex's office. Lex stepped out of the shadows to intercept the man.

"Clark," he greeted the man. He looked just as Lex remembered and it suddenly hit him that this Clark was older than his own Clark had ever become. He wondered how long he had lived in his own time line.

"Lex?" he asked. He sounded confused and as his eyes roamed over Lex's body his eyes started to narrow. "Who are you?" he demanded. "You're not supposed to be here."

"No, and neither are you, Clark," Lex insisted. "I'm from the future where you went down that hall and spoke to Lex. I'm here to stop you."

"Why?" Clark asked. His eyes flashed dangerously.

"Because it didn't work out. Something terrible happened. If you go in there and tell Lex who you are and where you're from he's going to become obsessed with learning how time travel works. He'll eventually figure it out with the help of your father...."

"My dad?"

"Jor-El," Lex supplied and watched as Clark's eyebrows shot up. "But along the way he'll attract some really nasty attention."

"What do you mean?"

"Where I'm from," Lex started and then shook his head, "No. When I'm from Earth has been invaded and conquered by an alien race."

"My people?"

"No, an old enemy of your people. They... they are not kind, Clark. I don't know how it was when you're from, but it can't be much worse than it is."

"It is worse," Clark said softly.

"What?"

"It's worse. It.... You, Lex. You caused a nuclear holocaust. Almost everyone is dead and the people who aren't are sick and dying. There are children born every year that just.... They're not even human anymore, Lex."

"I...," Lex stopped. He didn't even know what to say. How could he have done something like that? "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't you. I mean you, you. It's just really bad. I need to do something. I need to change it," Clark insisted.

"Okay," Lex conceded, "so we're here to do something. Just not with me. We need to talk to you."

"Okay," Clark agreed after a moment of consideration.

"I need you to take this," Lex said and passed over the second tether that he had brought with him. "You can't lose it."

Clark took the little device and looked at it. "What is it?"

"It's a time tether. It's attached to my timeline," Lex explained. "I have one implanted under my skin here," Lex said and pointed to a spot on his arm. "It will prevent you from disappearing from the timeline. It... it can also allow you to come back to my time if you choose to do that."

Clark looked at him sharply. "Your Clark?"

"Dead," Lex admitted. It was the first time that the words had actually left his mouth. It hurt so much for him to think about his beloved. He had no idea what the Sengari had done to him, but there was no doubt in Lex's mind that the other man was dead.

"How?" Clark asked. There was a slightly accusing tone in his voice.

"It wasn't me, if that's what you mean, Clark," Lex snapped and then sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just... it's hard. I loved him so much. It was the aliens. Over a year ago now."

"So you were together?"

"Yes."

"And it didn't help?"

"Well I certainly never contemplated nuclear holocaust," Lex said bitterly. "But no, in the end I guess it didn't really help. The world still came apart."

"Maybe it's fate, then," Clark suggested.

"No. I think we can still fix it. But Clark needs to get through to me before Desiree happens."

"Ok.... Wait. You still married Desiree?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't listen to me," Clark accused. "I came here to stop you from going to that conference and meeting her, but you still did it."

"I told you," Lex tried to explain, "I became fascinated with time travel. I had to go and see if what you had predicted really came true. Desiree's existence convinced me that you really had been from the future. It convinced me to continue looking for the secrets that I knew you held."

Clark looked like he wanted to call Lex something nasty, but he visibly restrained himself from doing so. He took one step back down the stairs and away from Lex's office. "So, talking to you was a bad idea?"

"Yes."

"What are we going to say to me?"

"Where are you right now?" Lex asked. It was a reasonable question. Lex had no idea where Clark would have been that day. He only knew that he had been in his office receiving a strange visit from this Clark in front of him.

"It's August," Clark reasoned. "I'm probably in the barn moping because I can't find a way to get you to notice me."

"Clark?"

"You didn't think that I just suddenly woke up one day and decided that I liked you, did you? I moped about you for years, I'm sure."

Lex looked over at Clark and found that the other man was smiling. He was making fun of himself and Lex couldn't help but smile back. This man was so much like his Clark. It would be so easy to let them meld together and become one person in his mind, but he knew he couldn't let himself do that. Even if this Clark did decide to return with him, Lex would always need to remind himself that this man was not his mate.

"What happened to me in your timeline? How did I become that evil?" Lex asked as the two of them quietly made their way out of the manor and across the grounds.

They kept as out-of-sight as possible. It wouldn't do to have someone recognize them and wonder what they were doing, especially when they looked so much older than they should have in this time. Clark showed Lex a shortcut through one of the fields that would take them more quickly to the Kent farm.

"I told you that I loved you," Clark started and Lex nodded his encouragement. "We were together for a time, but you always insisted that you couldn't love me back. I wanted you to move in with me and you told me that we were only fucking. I was young. It hurt. I ran away from you and didn't come back. I was never able to love anyone else. You know about that, right?"

"Yes," Lex assured the other man.

"Oh, good. I had no idea what was going on for the longest time. Then Father told me and I was devastated. To be bonded to a man who swore he would never be able to love me back was the worst fate imaginable."

"How did that lead to me trying to end the world?"

"Ah," Clark breathed. "Apparently you, or my Lex, really did love me, but he was so screwed up from what Desiree did to him that he never allowed himself to acknowledge it. Over all those years his love turned into a bitter hate and he eventually decided that he simply couldn't go on living with the pain he was in. He... he wanted me to kill him and he knew that the only way I would do that was if he did something horrific. So, he did."

"You killed him?" Lex demanded.

"I had to. He destroyed the world, Lex. How could I let him go on living after something like that?"

"I understand," Lex said quietly. "I can't even imagine it being like that between us."

Clark nodded but didn't reply. The two of them kept walking. The Kent farm appeared around a bend in the road and Lex knew that they were only another ten minutes away.

"He left me once," Lex said softly.

"What?" Clark asked.

"You.... Clark. He left me once."

"Why?"

"I was obsessed with learning how time travel worked. I was staying in the lab all the time and never coming home. He left, went back to live with his parents for two months over the summer, and told me that he wouldn't be moving back into the penthouse in the fall. I thought I could take it. I thought that it didn't really matter. I was wrong. After only a week I felt like I couldn't function. I held out for the two months because I was stubborn and then I started begging him to come home."

"He obviously did," Clark observed.

"He did," Lex agreed. "And we worked out how my research was going to happen. I still spent a lot of time at the lab, but I came home every night. Living without him for those two months nearly broke me, though. I can almost see how your Lex could have done what he did after not being with you for so long."

"I never knew," Clark insisted.

"I know. I can imagine what I said to you to drive you away. I've always been a bastard when I'm scared. We just need to make sure we change the future for this Lex and Clark. None of this can happen again."

They were standing in front of the Kent barn then. It was time to fix the past once and for all.

"No, never again," Clark agreed.

\-----

Clark sighed and flopped back on the couch in the barn. It was another long, boring summer day. He wished he were anywhere other than where he was. His parents were off at another cattle auction. They were trying to replace the herd that had been lost earlier in the year. If only his father hadn't been so stubborn and had actually taken Lex's money, it would have been a lot easier to do. So Clark had been left alone at the farm again. He'd already completed his own chores and the ones his father normally did. He was thinking about going to Lex's place, but remembered that the older man had said something about having a lot of work to get done that week.

Lex. If only Clark could find some way to tell the man how he felt. It shouldn't be this hard. Lex had been sending him signals since the first time the two of them had met, but for some reason he still seemed so untouchable. Maybe it was the sleek, smooth Luthor exterior that Lex seemed to wear around everyone except Clark. Maybe it was all the extra responsibilities that his friend had needed to take on after his father's accident. Clark really didn't know, but there was something that was making him stop and pull back every time he thought he was finally going to tell Lex how he felt.

There was a sound of feet hitting gravel in the barn and Clark's ears perked up. He hadn't heard his parents' truck, so that meant that whoever was downstairs, it wasn't them. Chloe was in Metropolis still doing her internship, so it couldn't be her either. Of his friends, that only left Lex or Pete, and as often as Lex seemed to pop up in the barn, Clark really didn't think the man would be there after expressing the necessity of his work earlier in the week.

"Pete?" Clark called.

"No, Clark, it's me," came the reply and Clark was surprised to find that his visitor really was Lex.

"Hey Lex," Clark greeted the man as he finished ascending the stairs. Clark stood up from the couch and stepped towards the stairs. It wasn't until Lex was on the landing and his face was in the light that Clark could see him clearly. This wasn't Lex. Or maybe, this wasn't his Lex. The man definitely looked like Lex, and he sounded like Lex, but he was way older than Lex.

"Clark...."

"Who are you?" Clark demanded and then moved back as an older version of himself also stepped up onto the landing. "Wh... what the hell?" Clark demanded.

"Clark, it's okay," Lex insisted and stepped forward. "We're here to talk with you."

"What's happening?"

"Clark, it's really okay," the other Clark said in a soothing voice. "We're from the future and we've come here to speak with you."

Clark stepped back further. The backs of his legs hit the couch and he fell down into the soft seat. "I don't understand."

"I know this is strange. What you really need to know, Clark, is that we've come from two very different futures where things went quite wrong," Lex explained.

"We've come back to help you change your own," the older Clark continued.

"You're from different futures?" Clark asked. That didn't seem to make any sense to him. It they were from different futures, then why were they here together at the same time.

"I know that's confusing. It would take too long to explain it and doing so would taint your timeline, but yes, we're from two different futures," the other Clark explained. "In my future everything goes bad because you wait too long to tell Lex how you feel. You need to do it now, before the end of the summer."

"What? No, I can't," Clark protested.

"You have to," Lex told him. "He cares for you too, believe me."

"Did you love your Clark?" Clark asked the older version of Lex.

"Very much so," Lex admitted.

"But it didn't work out?"

"Something else went wrong," Lex told him with a sigh. "Something that we've already managed to prevent from happening again. Now you just need to go tell Lex how you feel about him."

"Why is it so important that I do this right now?"

"Lex is going to go away to a conference in a couple of weeks," his older double supplied. "Something will happen there that will change his life forever. If you don't tell him that you love him and stop him from going, he'll never properly be able to love you back."

"You're sure?" Clark asked. He didn't know if he liked the sound of this. He was supposed to put himself out on the line to prevent something that he didn't even understand? What if they were wrong and this Lex really didn't care for him the way this Lex had cared for his Clark? What if Lex laughed in his face and Clark had to feel even more like an outcast than he already did?

"We're positive," Lex supplied. "That's me in there and I know that I care for you very much, but I'm scared to get involved. I'm scared that I'll hurt you. You're so young and I want you to go out and experience life before you come to me and ask for this. The problem is that neither of us can wait for that to happen. You need to go to me and tell me how you feel and you need to be sure of it. I'll try to convince you to wait. You can't let that happen."

"I...," Clark stuttered.

"You're planning on asking him to go camping with you at the end of the summer, right?" Old-Clark asked.

"Yes," Clark replied.

"Tell him how you feel and take him camping with you. Everything will work out," Lex insisted.

"If you're sure," Clark hedged.

"We're sure," both the other man assured him.

"Okay," Clark finally agreed. "I'll try." He still felt worried, but if they were both sure then it must have been true that Lex liked him. After all, this Lex had said that he loved his Clark. Hearing that come out of Lex's mouth would be like a dream come true for Clark.

"Go now," Lex insisted.

Clark stood up and passed them. "Thanks," he said.

"Thank you," Old-Clark returned.

The two older men smiled softly at each other as Clark rushed down the stairs and headed towards Lex's place.

\-----

"Lex?" Clark asked as he stepped into Lex's office. He felt so strange being here in Lex's mansion after speaking to an older version of Lex in his loft only moments before. He hoped that the two older men had been right, because if they weren't, Clark was going to feel like a complete idiot in a few moments.

"Clark," Lex called out in surprise and looked up from the papers he was working on. "I didn't expect you to come over this afternoon."

"I... I'm sorry. Are you busy?"

"No, Clark. I'm never too busy for you." Lex closed the file that he had lying open on his desk and turned to look directly at Clark. "You have my full attention. What do you need?"

"Umm," Clark muttered. Now Lex was staring at him and he felt like he was being put on the spot. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Something's wrong?" Lex asked. The concern was evident in his voice. Lex knew that Clark's parents were out of town and he had told Clark more than once that if anything ever happened when his parents weren't around that Clark was to come to him. It was only logical for Lex to assume that something had happened and Clark needed his help.

"No, nothing," Clark assured his friend. "It's something personal."

"Personal?" Lex asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. His eyebrow rose. Clark always loved that expression when it was on his friend's face.

"Yes," Clark confirmed.

"Lana?"

"No," Clark said with a small laugh.

"Chloe? I know she's in Metropolis for the summer. I can take you into the city next weekend to visit her if you'd like," Lex offered.

"Lex, no," Clark insisted. "This isn't about either of them."

"Then who?" Lex asked. "Who's got your eye this week, Clark?" Lex teased softly.

Clark blushed. "You," he muttered.

"What?" Lex asked as if he hadn't heard correctly.

"I... I said you, Lex. That's what I came here to tell you. I like you."

"I like you too, Clark," Lex said with a small smile.

"You do understand what I'm saying, don't you Lex?" Clark asked. He wasn't sure if what he had said had really been understood in the way that he had meant it. Maybe Lex just thought that he meant that he liked him as a friend.

Lex's smile faded and he looked at Clark's seriously. "I understand," he said with a nod. "I like you too, Clark. I just think we should wait. You need to experience life some more before you can decide that this is what you really want."

"No," Clark insisted. This was exactly what the others had said Lex would say. He moved over to stand next to Lex's desk and looked down at his friend. "I don't want to wait. I don't need to experience life more. I know that you're what I want."

"Clark," Lex protested.

"I'm not a child. I like you, Lex. I dream about you. You. Not Lana, not Chloe, not anyone else. You're the only one who makes me feel happy, nervous and excited all at the same time."

"Clark, I don't know what to say," Lex replied.

"Just say that you feel the same way."

"Clark, you know that I like you," Lex agreed.

Clark swallowed hard. It was now or never. If he was going to convince Lex and fix the future he needed to risk looking like an idiot. "You like me a lot, don't you, Lex?" Clark asked in a low voice as he moved closer to Lex. His heart racing, he dipped his head so that he could kiss the older man. He was moving slowly to allow Lex the option of pulling away if he wanted to. Lex didn't even twitch.

"Yes," Lex breathed as Clark moved in.

And then Clark's lips were on Lex's and nothing else mattered. They were kissing and it was amazing. Lex's mouth opened up under Clark's and his tongue slipped into Clark's mouth. Kissing Lex was nothing like kissing any girl. It was so much better than Clark had ever imagined it would be. A shiver ran through his body and he moaned into Lex's mouth. Lex's hands came up and slid into Clark's hair. They kissed for several long moments before eventually pulling apart.

"Wow," Clark breathed, his mouth still close to Lex's. There was only a wisp of space between the two of them.

"Clark, I...," Lex started and then stopped. "That was amazing."

"I really, really like you," Clark insisted. "I want to be with you. I don't want to be with Lana or Chloe or anyone else. Just you."

"Okay," Lex agreed with a nod.

"You're sure?"

"You make a very compelling argument," Lex told him with a smirk and then leaned in to capture Clark's lips again.

They kissed for a long time, tongues sliding over one another. Clark moaned deep into Lex's mouth and nipped at his lips. Lex's hands slipped up under Clark's shirt and started to explore his stomach. Clark pressed into Lex's touch and ran his own hands down over Lex's arms.

"Clark," Lex gasped as they eventually pulled apart again.

"Yes?" Clark asked.

"You know I really like you, Clark, but if we don't stop doing this now, I'm not going to be able to stop us from taking it further," Lex warned his friend.

"What if I don't want to stop?" Clark asked in a low voice.

Lex groaned and rested his forehead against Clark's shoulder. "Clark," he gasped. "I respect you and I can't say that about a lot of people in my life. I want this to go somewhere and I hope that you want that as well. But because of that I want us to take some time before we jump into bed."

Clark blushed fiercely at Lex's words, but eventually nodded. He had to agree with the older man. If what the other Clark and Lex had told him was true, then this would be the most serious relationship of his life. He needed to do it right, to take it slow and build something lasting between the two of them. If the fate of the world rested on their ability to make their relationship work, then it was the least that Clark could do.

"Okay," Clark agreed. "I wanted to invite you to come camping with me during the long weekend before school starts."

"I... I'd love to, Clark, but I can't. I have to go to a conference that week. I won't be back until the Saturday," Lex told him.

"Do you really need to go?" Clark asked.

"Yes," Lex insisted.

Clark had to keep Lex from going to that conference. He didn't know what was supposed to happen there, but whatever it was, the future Clark and Lex were sure that it would change Lex into a person who couldn't love Clark and Clark didn't want that. "Lex, please?" Clark pleaded. "I really want to go away with you. Can't you send one of your employees instead?"

"I guess I could," Lex conceded.

"Just the two of us," Clark breathed. He leaned back in and kissed Lex again. "Alone and in the middle of nowhere."

"Okay," Lex agreed when Clark released his lips. "I'll call Phillip right now and get him to go in my place."

"Cool," Clark said with a smile and Lex smiled right back. There couldn't have been anything better.

\-----

"How are they doing?" Lex asked Clark. The two of them were standing outside in the yard of the manor next to the time travel pod that Lex had arrived in. Clark was using his x-ray vision and his sensitive hearing to 'spy' on the Clark and Lex inside the manor.

"Lex agreed to go away with him instead of attending the conference," Clark reported.

"Thank God," Lex said. "I can imagine how stubborn I would have been if Clark asked me the same thing at this time."

"Clark was very convincing," the other man said with a smile and turned back to look at Lex. "I think it's going to be okay."

Lex nodded. "All we can do now is hope for the best. We'll never really know how it ends up for them."

"No," Clark agreed somewhat sadly.

"Have you decided?" Lex asked gently. "About whether you want to come back with me or not?"

"What will happen to me if I give you back the tether and you leave without me?"

"You'll eventually fade out of time and cease to exist. It probably won't take long. It should be only a couple of minutes once you rejoin your own timeline. We've made enough changes that you can't possibly exist any longer," Lex explained.

"And if I go with you, I'll just join your timeline like I always belonged there?"

"Yes. That's Jor-El's theory anyhow, and he's been right so far."

"Do you want me there?" Clark asked. "I know that I could never replace your Clark, but ...."

"I know. You remind me a lot of, well, of my Clark. We're fighting for our freedom against the Sengari. The world is in pieces. It's not a nice place to be," Lex told him.

"Maybe not," Clark agreed, "but it seems to be the only place for me now."

Lex nodded. It was true. There was really nowhere else for this Clark to go. If he remained behind, he would eventually cease to exist, and he couldn't go back to the time he had come from. "I do want you there," Lex assured him. "That's why I brought the tether for you in the first place."

Clark thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll come."

The timer on Lex's tether started to beep. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and pressed one of the buttons on the device embedded in his arm. He would be so glad to be able to have it removed once he and Clark returned to the future.

"It's time to go."

Clark nodded his understanding then turned back to look at the young Clark and Lex in the manor one last time. They had so much ahead of them that Clark couldn't help but smile.

"I'm sure they're going to be just fine," Lex assured him and placed his hand on Clark's shoulder.

Clark smiled down at Lex and nodded slowly. He followed the other man into the time pod and they stepped into their future together.


End file.
